Northeast Pennsylvania is about to crown a \u201cKing of Wings.\u201d<\/p>\n
After more than 110,000 votes online so far, the contest shifts Thursday to a rivalry between Luzerne County and Lackawanna County \u2014 for the first time ever.<\/p>\n
Haggerty\u2019s of Scranton won the Lackawanna County match up organized by the NEPA Chicken Wing Bulletin as part of the group\u2019s second NEPA Wing Madness contest hosted online.<\/p>\n
Finns Cafe 99 of Wilkes-Barre, the defending champion, and Murphy\u2019s Pub of Swoyersville were locked in a tight battle Wednesday for the Wyoming Valley crown.<\/p>\n
Now, the chicken wing border wars start \u2014 the Luzerne County champion versus the Lackawanna County.<\/p>\n
No matter who won or who lost during this weeks-long competition, most everyone says the contest has increased bar and wing business from Carbondale to Shickshinny thanks to a small army of wing warriors.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery bar is packed. They are slammed,\u201d said Matty Centak, of Hanover Twp., an administrator of the NEPA Chicken Wing Bulletin \u201cEvery bar owner in the area is calling us, thanking us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NEPA Chicken Wing Bulletin Facebook page has gained thousands of new followers during the past few weeks, up to around 30,000 followers.<\/p>\n
The members treat evaluating chicken wings multiple time a week as a hobby.<\/p>\n
\u201dWe have a good following, a steady core. Hundreds of guys. They go out and travel all week,\u201d Centak said.<\/p>\n
Centak and another administrator created the annual Swoyersville Wing Fling, which has become a popular summer festival in the Wyoming Valley.<\/p>\n
Last year, Finns won the title in the inaugural NEPA Wing Madness that was coordinated to run with the NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament.<\/p>\n
Jimmy Finn said the honor was life and business-changing for his establishment, requiring him to hire more staff.<\/p>\n
The staff at Haggerty\u2019s Tavern in Scranton has realized the phenomenon of the NEPA Chicken Wing Madness challenge.<\/p>\n
An already popular business in the city, Haggerty\u2019s has experienced a surge in customers in recent weeks, owner Tony Konasavage<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely helped. People are coming from all different area and are trying places they never normally heard of,\u201d Konasavage said.<\/p>\n
To vote for the finals, go to the \u201cNEPA Chicken Wing Bulletin\u201d Facebook page and click on \u201cFeatured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Konasavage said the competition inspired him to visit his competitor many times.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gets the owners out to other places. We went up to the Peanut Bar the other day. We just went to the Patch, which are friends. It\u2019s about getting out and supporting other businesses and staff. I\u2019m in my kitchen a lot so I like when I can get out,\u201d Konasavage said. \u201cTheres a lot of chain restaurant that people default go it. They don\u2019t think of going to the local people. We don\u2019t have big marketing budgets like Buffalo Wild Wings. Things like this supporting local business help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northeast Pennsylvania is about to crown a \u201cKing of Wings.\u201d After more than 110,000 votes online so far,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,803,139,28,435,178,180,179,289,181],"class_list":["post-148687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-restaurants-food-and-drink","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}