What was originally planned for this column — the last in the weekly run of Chicken Finger Fridays before the column’s finale in The Daily Beacon’s upcoming Welcome Back issue — was a follow-up to the Wal-Mart budget plate. Columnist Cody Swallows planned to look into more expensive options at your average grocery store and see how those fared, both in the stomach and with the wallet.
But really, Tyson-brand chicken — the gold standard of frozen chicken — is not too much more expensive than Wal-Mart’s Great Value-brand chicken fingers. It’s maybe $1 or $2 more, if anything. Name-brand frozen French fries are still frozen French fries, no matter how mediocre Great Value’s French fries are. And it’s highly unlikely that Great Value-brand Texas toast can be topped.
So the prices between an expensive, grocery store plate and a budget, grocery store plate are probably inconsequential, and the taste difference is probably virtually non-existent as well. So let’s move on.
I’ve decided to pinchhit for this column and take it into a new direction, another all-you-can-eat direction.
When the idea for this column was first formalized, a mutual friend instantly recommended Wild Wing Cafe, saying it was the creme da la creme of fried chicken in Knoxville. Having never been there, Swallows and I were skeptical, but we allowed him his opinion.
Wednesday afternoon marked my personal second visit to Wild Wing Cafe, and the results were a mixed bag.
As previously stated, Wild Wing Cafe’s main word-of-mouth allure — at least to a relative Wild Wing Cafe virgin like myself — is its all-you-can-eat deal. This comes in at $10, which is on par with just about any all-you-can-eat offerings you can find, outside of say, Cici’s Pizza or Sawyer’s. The entire meal, with drink but sans tip, came in at $11.95.
Now was it worth the money? Yes and no. The atmosphere was certainly commendable. Wild Wing Cafe is large and with plenty of seating. Though a not-well-chosen seat could lead to long walks to the self-serve buffet of wings, it’s up to you to choose well, and our party was in moderate distance from the delectable fowl.
But what about the wings? As someone who personally does not enjoy getting too messy with wing consumption, a fact which people usually write off as inevitable, I frowned at the prospect of only having one boneless option. It meant I only had one wing to choose from if I wished to utilize the fork provided and keep the inner crevices of my fingernails free from a smell of barbecue for the next few hours. It was a downer, especially since Hooters offers you the choice of getting anything in boneless variety. (Though Hooters costs a bit more for all-you-can-eat.)
The boneless variety of wing was adequate but not the best of the offerings. Flavors like lemon pepper, wild west and barbecue lured me away. It looked like, just like in the real wild west, I was going to have to get my hands dirty.
Unfortunately the most delicious variety of wing — the barbecue — was also the most slippery. The BBQ wings, indeed, seem like they are absolutely bathed in the sauce. The BBQ sauce is quite tasty, but the amounts are obviously unnecessary. It makes one wish he or she had made a special request for regular wings with a dipping BBQ sauce.
The lemon pepper, while not as mouth-watering as the BBQ, is the best middleground. It was not boneless, but it was also quite tasty and not caked in sauce.
It’s hard to exactly tell how “worth it” the all-you-can-eat experience was, especially since my party and myself were eating what equated to breakfast for us, just roughly one hour after we all woke up. And for many college students, they will have a likewise experience if they try all-you-can-eat, since it’s only available for lunch.
Plus all-you-can-eat at Sawyer’s is not only cheaper, but it also gives patrons chicken fingers, rather than the more plentiful wings, and chances at getting refills of Texas toast and French fries, which is not available at any other places, at least to the knowledge of this writer.
All in all, Wild Wing Cafe, taken by itself, is an enjoyable experience, on par with other all-you-can-eat offerings. But in comparison, Wild Wing Cafe does not offer the good value of Sawyer’s, nor does it have the options of Golden Corral. Ultimately, the advice I give is to look elsewhere.

— Robby O’Daniel is a graduate student in communication and information. He can be reached at rodaniel@utk.edu.