Baked Wings explains ‘gut-wrenching’ decision to close restaurant in Loves Park

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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LOVES PARK — Baked Wings started as a ghost kitchen operated from inside The Pomodoro Italian restaurant, and if you want to taste its dry-rub boneless and bone-in chicken wings in the future that’s where you’ll find it.

That’s a small portion of Baked Wings that will live on in Loves Park after the permanent closure of the restaurant at 6390 E. Riverside Blvd. The closure was announced on social media Wednesday, nearly a month after what was expected to be a temporary shutdown started March 9.

“We put our blood, sweat and tears into this place and it’s gut-wrenching to have to type out the post I had to type out (Wednesday),” said Scott Frank, who owns Baked Wings with business partners Bryan Suh and Marti McKinney. “And it was gut-wrenching to lose our staff and our customers. Awful.”

“This has been really hard for my other two partners as well. We’ve been living under a lot of stress for quite a while.”

Frank and his wife, Brittany, own and operate The Pomodoro just a few doors down at 6500 E. Riverside Blvd. They plan to add the bone-in and boneless wings to The Pomodoro menu in a little more then a week.

Gift cards

The Pomodoro will also honor Baked Wings gift cards starting immediately. You can now use them for its Italian cuisine such as its salmon Izzabella, margherita pizza or vodka Bolognese lasagna. Or wait roughly a week and spend the cards when the wings are added to the menu.

“Since my wife and I fully own The Pomodoro and are partners at Baked Wings, we think it’s the right thing to do to honor their gift cards over here,” Frank said. “We want people that bought gift cards to be able to utilize them.”

How it started, why it closed

Baked Wings started in August of 2020 during the restaurant shutdowns that were ordered in an effort to curtail the spread of the coronavirus. It was what’s know as a ghost kitchen, where the food is made for delivery or curbside service without a storefront of its own.

“It helped us survive COVID, lots of places weren’t so fortunate,” Frank said.

It opened as its own standalone restaurant in November 2022, filling the former Eggspress Cafe.

It had major highs during its two-plus year run, including selling 11,600 wings during its first Super Bowl.

The ownership trio had envisioned franchising the restaurant in college towns and other locations, and they were working on another location. Frank said Thursday he could not discuss any other locations.

He said rising food costs and inflation were major contributors to the decision to close.

“A 40-pound case of bone-in jumbo chicken wings when we opened was $42. It rose all the way up to $200 over the last few years,” he said. “Right now, it’s sitting around $68, so still up about 50%. But for the majority of the last several years it’s been well over $100. … That’s our number one selling thing is a bone-in jumbo chicken wing.”

Other rising costs from utilities to to-go containers also stressed the bottom line, he said. While some companies opted for so-called shrink-flation by reducing the size of the wings they offer, Baked Wings decided to stick with its jumbo option.

“We didn’t want to compromise the quality of our chicken, so we stuck with that,” Frank said. “That’s something we had our flagpole in the ground with – we’re selling jumbo bone-in chicken wings and we’re not going to go to the scrawny, small ones.”

The restaurant was focused on serving real foods as fresh as possible, he said.

“We didn’t even have a can opener in the building. Nothing came out of a can in the whole place,” he said. “I’m very proud of the business we built. I’m very proud of the brand.”

Frank said having to announce the closure of Baked Wings was one of the worst days he’s had in a long time.

“Probably since Gov. Pritzker had the press conference on that Sunday afternoon that he was closing indoor dining down for two weeks to slow the spread, which we know turned in to about two years,” Frank said. “Yesterday I had that same pit in my stomach when I was typing the Facebook post.”

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.