Craveworthy Brands, award-winning wing concept, was recently featured in the The Daily Herald by Dave Oberhelman.
People who like their March Madness college basketball games with a side order of chicken wings are in luck. Wing It On!, a dine-in or carryout chicken wing restaurant, is slated to open in mid-March in Carol Stream at 333 S. Schmale Road.
Wing It On!, which in July 2024 opened its first Midwest location in Lombard, has won several first-place awards at the National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, New York, where Buffalo chicken wings originated.
A sponsor of the USA Chicken Wing Eating Championship, Wing It On! offers more than 20 sauces and rubs for its chicken wings. It took first place in 2024 for its extra-hot sauce, called “Wings of Prey,” and won in 2023 and 2022 for its medium Buffalo sauce. It’s also earned runner-up finishes at the festival for its dry rub and barbecue sauce.
In addition to chicken wings in orders from six to 30, Wing It On! offers chicken tenders, chicken sandwiches, french fries loaded with toppings and side dishes of macaroni and cheese, Chipotle ranch coleslaw, “loaded” street corn and crinkle-cut fries.
Dhruv Patel, one of three franchise partners at the Carol Stream location, said the restaurant will open with dining for about 20 to 25 people and plans to add more tables in the future. The kitchen was updated. But no new construction was needed, just the paint for the restaurant’s color scheme of orange, black and white.
“Everything else is there from the previous restaurant,” said Patel, a Streamwood resident.
Wing It On! is in the former site of Beverly’s Cafe, which will maintain several of its electronic games in the new restaurant. Chicago Fish and Chicken also operated there and, well before that, a Pizza Hut.
Matt Ensero, Wing It On! co-founder and president, started his chicken wings business in August 2011 in Waterbury, Connecticut. It began out of a need for a culinary accompaniment to the football games he watched at home with his friends.
“We always argued who was going to drive 30, 40 miles (for chicken wings) because there was no place around our house,” Ensero said. “We didn’t want to do a bar. We didn’t know alcohol. But we knew all the best wing joints in bars, restaurants,” he said.
In 2023, Ensero sold Wing It On! to South Elgin-based Craveworthy Brands, operated by former Jimmy John’s CEO Gregg Majewski. Craveworthy operates 15 brands, including Flat Top Grill, BD’s Mongolian Grill and Genghis Grill.
Including Carol Stream and Lombard, Wing It On! has 12 total units nationally — 11 brick-and-mortar stores and a “Wing It On! on Wheels” food truck in Connecticut.
The company started in Connecticut, expanded to New Jersey, and added stores in North Carolina, Florida and Texas. It also plans a restaurant in downstate Springfield this summer.
“Carol Stream is a pretty good area, to be honest with you,” Patel said. “It’s the suburbs, and it’s really nice.”