Bottlenecks

Basic Information:

Location: 3 S Main St, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 18701
Phone Number: (570) 824-1140
Normal Wing Price: $6.95 for a dozen.
Wing Night: Tuesday
Wing Night Price: $13.95 for all-you-can-eat buffet
Wing Flavors:

Hot, Mild, Fire!, Classic BBQ, Honey BBQ, Parmesan, Butter & Garlic, Hot Butter Garlic, Honey Mustard, Buffalo Ranch, Sweet Heat, Wasabi Ranch, Sweet Chili, Honey Old Bay, Thai Peanut, Cajun, Teriyaki, Chipotle

Links: Website  |  Facebook
Notes:

Wing to get: Wasabi Ranch

  • Our First Visit to Bottlenecks - 08/13/13

    Overall Rating: 58

    Lynch Serniak

    Lynch's Rating: 30 out of 50

    Environment: 5

    The square of Wilkes Barre has a number of interesting places to check out. This is one of those places. It’s pretty roomy on the inside, with a large bar and lots of seating. It is a well-kept place, too. It is furnished with a foosball table, darts, jukebox, and an interesting island bar thing where you can pay for your beer per ounce. The place did play a lot of country, which didn’t really jive with the vibe and look of the place. Also, it was very empty for it being a wing night. People did filter in as the night went on, but not as many as you would think. With such a low clientele, I expected a fast turnaround time on our wings, but that did not happen. There were seven of us, but it still took quite a while for the wings. On top of that, our waitress wasn’t exactly the best around. That’s for sure. The weird thing is that the sauces are not mixed with the wings. They are served on the side. If you want it tossed, that’s an extra $0.59. If you more than one sauce, that’s an extra $0.59. I want my wings drenched in sauce. Plus, some of the sauces were served cold.


    Wing Size: 1

    There is a lot to say here. Their wing night consists of $2 off their normal price of dozen, so that would make it $6.95, or you can partake in their all-you-can-eat buffet for $13.95. $6.95 for a dozen evens out to just about $0.60 a wing. But, you may be saying, what about that buffet. Think of it this way, you would need to eat 28 wings for it to be $0.50 each. And it’s not even a buffet! They don’t have a buffet table out. You can’t keep going up to get whatever sauce you want. No, the buffet works like this. Your first order is of 15 wings with one type of sauce. After the 15 wings, they do orders of six with an additional type of sauce. That’s if you can even handle more, because the wings were pretty massive. For me, I got the buffet with 3 additional sauces. That’s $13.95 plus $0.59 for each additional sauce. I could only take down 15 wings, so I paid roughly 16 bucks for 15 wings. That equals out to a little over a dollar each. It was a complete rip-off and the worst business strategy ever. It shouldn’t be that complicated.


    Wing Flavors: 8

    Bottlenecks had a good selection of wings. They had plenty of sauces with very interesting choices. Thankfully, since we went as part of a larger group, we got to try many of the flavors. I’ve only seen one other place with a Wasabi flavor wing.


    Wing Taste (x2): 8

    Whereas the whole buffet strategy completely sucked, the wings tasted pretty good. The wing a big, deep fried, and have a sort of breading on them. I think they’re tossed in flour before being placed in the deep fryer. The Hot sauce was very spicy with a great taste. Buffalo Ranch is exactly what you would expect. It was more Ranchy than Hot and had a bit of a cooler ranch taste. It was still good though. Wasabi Ranch was another good combination. The ranch and wasabi flavored blended nicely to create a good flavor without one being too overpowering. Teriyaki was a thick sauce with plenty of saltiness, which I am a fan of. The Parmesan was a bit lacking. It was mostly butter with some Parmesan. The butter was very strong in this one. The Butter Garlic were very similar. The Hot Butter Garlic was a surprise hit. The addition of Hot sauce to the Butter Garlic mix greatly improved the flavor. Thai Peanut was good too. It had a lot of a peanut butter taste to it with a spice like curry. I had hopes with the Honey Old Bay, but was ultimately let down. It wasn’t bad by any means, but I was not blown out of the water. Overall, the wings were pretty fantastic.

    Serniak's Rating: 28 out of 50

    Environment: 4

    Bottlenecks is a very clean place equipped with a pool table and darts. It is also a real big place. There is a large you can sit or sit at one of the many tables they have. When we got there, the atmosphere was nonexistent because there were only a few people at the bar. By the time we left, at around 9:30, the place was filled with what I would call college aged people. I bet the place is great on a weekend. Our server was nice but she seemed new because we had a few questions about the wings that she had no idea on. Why the score for environment is low for me is because 1st, sauce is on the side instead of on the wing itself, 2nd, their wing buffet is not really a buffet, all it is is that they bring you wings upon request. Pretty bizarre in my opinion.


    Wing Size: 2

    Here is where the train went off the rails. Their wing night buffet, which I ordered, turned out to be no actual buffet where you go up and get your wings but they brought you 6 wings at a time with sauces on the side of course. This is after I had to get at least 15 wings to start of the buffet where I am allowed only 1 sauce and if I want to get more sauces on the side I have to pay an extra 60 cents a sauce. Then if you want more wings from the “buffet” after your first 15, you may order 6 wings at a time. So basically, I had 21 wings for near 18 dollars, on a wing night. I will say that the wings are really big but that alone couldn’t help the erroneous situation of their wing night buffet.


    Wing Flavors: 10

    Here is where the train went off the rails. Their wing night buffet, which I ordered, turned out to be no actual buffet where you go up and get your wings but they brought you 6 wings at a time with sauces on the side of course. This is after I had to get at least 15 wings to start of the buffet where I am allowed only 1 sauce and if I want to get more sauces on the side I have to pay an extra 60 cents a sauce. Then if you want more wings from the “buffet” after your first 15, you may order 6 wings at a time. So basically, I had 21 wings for near 18 dollars, on a wing night. I will say that the wings are really big but that alone couldn’t help the erroneous situation of their wing night buffet.


    Wing Taste (x2): 6

    I ordered hot, sweet heat, chipotle, cajun and sweet chili. Like I said earlier, the sauces so I had to dip them so I was already on edge. Anyways, the hot had a real good spice to them. Sweet heat and sweet chili were real good but they were similar as you could imagine. A real solid combination of hot and sweetness. They were nice. The cajun were real weird. First off, the color of them was yellow. I didn’t expect that. They also had no real Cajun flavor to them. They tasted like a lemony flavor. There is a descent chance that messed them up and if not then there is a problem there. The best wing I ordered was the chipotle. They had a real deep and subtle tang with great spice after the initial bite.