On August 21, Wing Zone held its grand opening next to WestSide Market under the Curran Parking deck. During the event, the wing restaurant offered music, T-shirts and samples of their food and sauces. Different features of Wing Zone such as their delivery vehicles and their mobile app were displayed and advertised.
Many employees and staff of the Wing Zone franchise attended the event as well, including its CEO, Matt Friedman. Friedman introduced himself and promoted the opening of his wing restaurant.
Wing Zone offers a variety of original wings, boneless wings, chicken tenders, burgers and grilled chicken sandwiches. The menu also holds vegetarian options and purchases for large parties of people.
Friedman explained that Wing Zone is an Atlanta-based company and the restaurant chose to set up a location at Tech due to the concentration of students that live within the campus.
“One of the core reasons why we chose Georgia Tech is because we are an Atlanta-based company and that is very important to us,” Friedman said. “Number two: Tech has a very high percentage of the student body living on campus. There are roughly 10,000 students that live on campus and that back[ing was important] to us [from] a business perspective.”
Friedman stated that Wing Zone stands out among the different dining options at Tech due to its location and delivery options. According to Friedman, Wing Zone tries promote its accessibility and avoid food courts or areas around classrooms on campus.
“Another thing is that we are open till 2 a.m. which is great for students,” Friedman said. “We also take student Dining Dollars and Buzzcard, and if you really look at it on West campus, there really weren’t a lot of dining options for students other than a dining hall.”
Originally, Wing Zone started on a college campus and was run by a fraternity, which Friedman calls an interesting fact about restaurant’s roots.
“The concept was started on my college campus 20 years ago at the University of Florida in a very similar type location,” Friedman said. “It was started in our fraternity house kitchen at a large university, and, with time, we grew the business into about 100 units throughout the entire United States, so we have a great entrepreneurial story.”