TEXAS BUSINESS

charlotte@wilcobr.com photos courtesy Facebook/AnchorBar

Winging It in a New CTX Franchise

Texas Entrepreneur Bringing Home a National Favorite

You may not be able to visit the restaurant that created the hamburger or the taco, but you can go to the place that invented the chicken wing. The dish that put the Anchor Bar restaurant on the food map is an unlikely origin story but is also what inspired T.J. Mahoney to open a location of his own in Round Rock last year.

PUT A WING ON IT

Late at night on March 4, 1964, one of the bartenders at Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York asked his mom to prepare something tasty for a group of hungry friends. With scant ingredients available, she whipped up a snack using chicken wings. The dish was an instant hit and today, 14 Anchor Bars across North America serve the famous football season staple. With demand for wings steadily outpacing supply since 2017, Anchor Bar’s jumbo1-only recipes are a steady favorite, and the franchise takes pride in having won the 2003 James Beard award—the food industry’s equivalent to an Oscar.

Mahoney’s wife Erin, a New York native and creative director at Scribe Media, grew up near the original home of the chicken wing in Buffalo and was used to great wings but that changed when she moved to Texas. “There are no good wings around here,” she would lament. It wasn’t until Mahoney tasted Anchor Bar’s bigger, crispier wings for himself that he realized the difference. “It took me two bites before I said, ‘Yes, these really are better.’ ”

At the time, he was working for Vrbo, and previously Dell, but after visiting Anchor Bar, an aspiration to do something on his own began simmering in his mind. A wings order from a different restaurant that was both late and messed up prompted him to ask Erin, What if we opened a real wings place around here? “It took her ten seconds to say, ‘Let’s do it.’ ”

Mahoney opened Anchor Bar in the La Frontera shopping center in October, naming his corporation YTRAB (Yes, These Really Are Better) Wings, Inc. The location choice was an easy one; a short distance from his home in Pflugerville and easy access to I-35 and 45.

Opening during COVID was definitely a challenge. The staffing challenges in the service industry itself are a piece of it, however challenges existed throughout. Obtaining supplies and equipment from vendors and staffing challenges with contractors performing work on the build-out also played a big part. “There are items we ordered in September we still haven’t received. And, some additional lighting was just installed this week because the contractor was waiting for necessary parts.”

None the less, Mahoney has enjoyed bringing a restaurant to the area that provides good service, 50 TVs, six audio zones, plus more than 40 beers, ales, and ciders on tap and on ice; and a dog-friendly patio known as Anchor Bark.

The menu also has selections for red meat lovers, including roast beef on weck. Weck is short for kümmelweck, a kaiser-like roll with pretzel salt and a smattering of caraway seeds baked onto the top. It’s a roll created to perfectly hold a heaping pile of rare, thin-sliced roast beef with a splash of au jus.

BECOMING A WING MAN

Switching from the corporate world to the restaurant industry has been both rewarding and challenging for Mahoney. He is grateful, though, for the project management, organizational, and financial experience gained through corporate jobs, which he has combined with a great management team that provides the restaurant know-how for Anchor Bar. The restaurant didn’t have enough staff when it first opened, but Anchor Bar has since assembled a team of more than 70 employees.

Anchor Bar Staff at the Official Grand Opening

Inflation and the labor shortage created several road bumps since opening Anchor Bar, although Mahoney says wing prices were already high—wholesale prices having tripled since 2020—so customers were accustomed to it. An increase in takeout food during lockdowns shifted consumption from sit-down restaurants to delivery and comfort food eateries. Fast-casual servings of chicken wings were up 7 percent in 2020 versus 2019 despite an 11 percent decline in trips to commercial restaurants over the same time period. This, among other supply chain challenges, led to a huge increase in chicken wing consumption and shortages of product.

Fortunately, while outpaced by egg-laying farms by a factor of ten to one, Texas is still a major source of the country’s chicken meat. Approximately 625 million broiler chickens are raised in Texas, primarily grown on family farms by farmers who have contracts with processing companies, so the supply in Texas restaurants is local and fresh.

ANCHORED IN COMMUNITY

The biggest challenge, T.J. says, has been franchise misconceptions. “It stings to not be considered a mom and pop because we’re a franchise. We live here; this is home for us,” he says, adding that both his sons have worked at Anchor Bar and the restaurant is always trying to be involved in the community, whether it’s by partnering with local breweries or delivering food to first responders during the last freeze in February. Amplify Austin’s motto, We Live Here, We Give Here, rings true for Anchor Bar. “It really is the case for us,” T.J. says.

CHICK IT OUT...

 Before they became a national snack, chicken wings were originally thrown out or used to make stock.  In the food industry, chicken wings are considered an off-premise friendly food.  The National Purchase Diary (NPD) reports Americans consumed 1 billion wings in 2019 and, while most restaurant sales declined during the pandemic, brands specializing in chicken performed relatively well2 .  The average American eats more than 17,000 wings in a lifetime.  Approximately 4 out of 5 wings eaten are in restaurants.  Americans are more likely to prefer eating bone-in, traditional wings (53%) than “boneless wings.”  Americans collectively eat 1.4 billion chicken wings during Superbowl weekend.