Arooga's Cash is Back!

We got such good feedback from this event last year that we have decided to do it again this holiday season! If you don't remember this promo from last year here's how it works...

Starting Monday, you will receive a black envelope with every check you get at any Arooga's location. Each envelope has a special "Arooga's cash" coupon inside. Each coupon has a prize on it! Some have a free drink or a free appetizer, a percentage off coupon (anywhere from 10-100% off your food!), of gift cards. Some even have FREE TRIPS to Vegas & Aruba!



For your coupon to be valid, your envelope must be opened in the presence of an Arooga's staff member on the day of redemption. Which means you need to hang onto your unopened envelope and bring it back any day during January and February (except during bowl games and playoffs) to claim your prize! Our customers last year definitely had fun with the anticipation and excitement of finding out what was in their envelopes! It really is a fun promotion and no matter what you get, you win! It's like getting a Christmas present form Arooga's!



We've been working hard to get this promo ready for you. We've stuffed THOUSANDS of envelopes! But they are going to disappear pretty quickly! You don't want to miss out on some awesome prizes so get here quickly to pick up your envelope!

Happy Holidays!

Arooga's is Coming to 2nd Street!

It’s official. We will be opening a new location on Second Street in Harrisburg. 201 North 2^nd Street to be exact.

But it’s not going to be just another Arooga’s… It’s going to be an Arooga’s Draft House & Sports Bar. A new version of our concept designed just for cities. It will include a larger draft selection, a majority of high top tables, and a sleek, toned down menu of all our most popular Arooga’s favorites.

Arooga’s Draft House & Sports Bar will also be the first Certified Green Restaurant in Downtown Harrisburg!

We are slated to open in the first quarter of 2012, and we are so excited to bring our award winning wings and a fresh new atmosphere to restaurant row!

Happy Halloween From Arooga's!

Here's a slideshow of the costumes we saw this weekend in Hanover and Harrisburg!





And here are the winners!


HANOVER

3rd Place:




















2nd Place:




















1st Place:






















HARRISBURG

3rd Place:




















2nd Place:




















1st Place:























Thank you so much to everyone who braved the weather this weekend and made it out! We have so many fun and creative patrons! We never know what to expect at Halloween and it was great seeing so many cool costumes. You all rock!

Brew 22 Vlog

Many people might not be aware of Brew 22 American Tavern. It is actually the sister-restaurant to Arooga's is located across the breezeway from the Arooga's on 22. It definitely a unique experience in the Harrisburg area. It is an open kitchen concept so you can actually watch your food being prepared. Plus they use a brick oven to cook their incredible pizzas and bolis. They also have a fantastic collection of craft beers both on draft and bottled. So, I thought it would be cool to show you all some videos from the staff at Brew 22 so you can get a taste of what the experience is like. They definitely know their stuff and would love to chat with you when you come in.

First up is Greg... you might remember him from our last Meet the Team Member post!





When you come to Brew 22, Greg will answer any questions you might have about beer and will gladly help you find something you will love!





And here is Chef Christian! You definitely need to come try some of his food to truly appreciate how great he is, but here he is to tell you about what he does.













Have you been to Brew 22? What did you think? We'd love to hear about so please leave us some comments!

Meet the Team Member: Greg

This installment of Meet the Team Member is a little different... meet Greg!




Name: Greg Walsh

Job Title: Front of House Manager

Job Responsibilities: ordering beer, wine, and liquor; scheduling; addressing complaints; administrative paperwork

Location: Brew 22

How long have you worked for Arooga's/Brew 22: 2 months

Favorite Wing Sauce: Orange Ginger

Favorite Menu Item: Beef short rib pot roast

Favorite Sports Team/Player: Bubba Watson

Best Thing About Working for Arooga's/Brew 22: working with top quality chefs and being around craft beer and craft beer enthusiasts

Catering Contest

by Nikki

A lot of people might not know that Arooga's actually offers catering services for parties, events, meetings and more. So, to spread the word we are running a contest! We want to offer you a fun vacation get a way!  Simply order food from Arooga's catering division any time in October and automatically get entered to win a trip to NYC, DC, Miami, San Francisco or San Antonio, your choice.  Every time you order from us your name will be entered.  Visit www.aroogas.com/catering or call 717-635-9464 x 1.  The winner will be notified by November 4th.

Check out our new menu online at aroogas.com/catering!  We look forward to serving you soon and hopefully sending you away on a nice vacation.

Meet the Team Member: Colleen

Name: Colleen

Job Title: Community Manager

Job Responsibilities: I handle all of the social media and web marketing (I tweet, I Facebook, and I edit this blog and force people to help me write posts!). I also respond to comments and reviews from customers online. Plus I coordinate the office orders and inventory at the corporate office.

Location: Corporate office

How long have you worked for Arooga’s?: 7 months

Favorite Wing Sauce: Louisiana Garlic Medium

Favorite Menu Item: That's a tough one... I really love the new Prime Rib Quesadilla that's on special on Fridays, but I probably eat at least 1 order of fried pickles a week so I'd have to say that's my absolute favorite.

Favorite Sports Team: Eagles and Phillies!!!

Best Thing About Working for Arooga’s: It's fun working in a laid back but fast paced atmosphere. We are a young company with a lot of potential, and I'm really excited about helping Arooga's make a splash in the online world.

Arooga's Social Media

By Colleen

There has been a few changes surrounding our Facebook and Twitter pages that I think it would be best to clarify to you all what is happening so you are following the right pages.

Facebook:

Our Arooga's Corporate page is here. This is where you will find company-wide information about what is happening at Arooga's. You can keep in touch with where our new locations will be, what contests Arooga's is winning, and all kinds of fun information like that.

If you live in the Harrisburg area and frequent our locations on the Camp Hill Bypass, the Carlisle Pike, Allentown Boulevard, or Linglestown Road, you might want to follow the page for our Harrisburg locations. On that page you will updates about specials, events, and all of the cool stuff happening at our original 4 stores.

And of course we also have a page for our fans in Hanover!


And the same goes for Twitter. The Corporate account is @Aroogas, the Harrisburg area account is, @AroogasOriginal, and the Hanover account is @Aroogas94. We've already started doing lots of fun things on Twitter! A few people have already won a couple gift cards just for answering a trivia question.


So there you have it... Those are the places you can go to keep tabs on what's happening at Arooga's! We have a lot more cool stuff coming soon to both Facebook and Twitter as well as in the stores. So keep your eyes open!

Meet the Team Member

This is the first post in our new series of blog posts called "Meet the Team Member." In each post we will introduce you to a member of the Arooga's team and tell a little bit about what they do for Arooga's. This way you can get a peak into the background of Arooga's, the people who keep it running, and what it takes to make it work! And first up we have Heidi...

Name: Heidi Salvaggio

Job Title: Executive Chef Assistant

Job Responsibilities: Purchasing, Inventory, Safety & Sanitation, Organization of Kitchens

Location: Corporate Office

How long have you worked for Arooga's?: 2 years

Favorite wing sauce: Smokehouse Hot

Favorite menu item: Any of our MVP baskets. They just give you a little of everything.

Favorite sports team:  Team Arooga's

Best thing about working for Arooga's: Working for a company that is going places fast

Thanks to Heidi for being the first to stop to the plate! Keep an eye out for more posts in this series soon!

National Buffalo Wing Festival

By Nikki

This was our best trip hands down to Buffalo, NY for the Buffalo wing festival.  This was our fourth year going and everything was flawless despite a wind storm that hit the stadium Saturday night and took down our tents.  We were up and running with rental tents for the final day of the festival thankfully.  This year we brought six of our most popular wing sauces for the wing enthusiasts to sample.  (Hickory Smoked Honey BBQ, Toasted Asian Sesame, Coal Cracker, Almost Everything, Kinda’ Hot Medium Sauce & The Ghost Face Killa’) 



There's a lot of interesting head gear in Buffalo!

Ian & Greg - hosts of the Arooga's Ghost Face Killa Challenge!

The one sauce that got the most attention at our tent not only for it’s creative and mysterious name but for the challenge that stood behind it. The Ghost Face Killa’ was definitely stirring up a lot of buzz and hype around the entire stadium about the wild challenge we had going on at the bright yellow Arooga’s tent. This year a special “I survived THE GHOST FACE KILLA” shirt was being awarded to souls who succeeded the challenge. Hosts Greg & Ian were the ones to determine if they had passed or failed the challenge. We had about a 40% success rate. The challenge was to eat 3 of our extra hot Ghost Face Killa wings that were treated special with extra ghost chili extract in 45 seconds. All meat had to be stripped from the bones and swallowed to win the battle. I felt so bad for the people doing this challenge, your eyes would water just from the smell of it. I feel like they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. At one point while video taping the sauce got in my eye and was one of the worst pains I ever experienced, I couldn’t imagine put those wings in my stomach! Ouch!

It was a very intense contest!

Not sure if that's a happy face or not... but I bet she's feeling the burn!

Not everyone can handle the heat!

The prized Ghost Face Killa t-shirt!

Last year I met Desiree at the Wing Festival where she was crowded Miss Buffalo Wing 2010.  We met up with her again this year where she had to assist with the 2011 pageant and then came to hang out with us at the Arooga’s tent.  She was crazy enough to take on the Ghost Face Killa wing eating contest after some convincing by Greg.  Even though she only ate 2 of the 3 wings we thought anyone to take on the challenge in a crown deserves a t-shirt!



Nikki with Desiree, Miss Buffalo Wing 2010

Besides being able to meet restaurant owners from around the country and sample their unique wing sauces, there is also a National blind taste test of the wing sauces in six different categories.  This year, Hickory Smoked Honey BBQ brought home the trophy for Arooga’s in the Traditional BBQ category. It is also the 4^th year Arooga’s was lucky enough to bring a trophy back to Central PA for the high quality and taste of our wing sauces!

Gary recieving the trophy!

Here is a picture of the Arooga’s team with our trophy and World Champion eater Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas. This is the 4^th year in a row Sonya won the professional wing eating contest, and this year she ate 183 wings in 12 minutes which is a world record! She weighs 100 lbs, it was a pretty crazy site to see.

The Black Widow!

Our IT manager, Adam with Joey Chestnut who also holds many competitive eating records

We had a great time talking with the patrons at the event who came from all over the country, and we'd like to thank everyone for all the positive feedback we received about the flavor and quality of all our sauces along with how fun our Ghost Face Killa Challenge was.  It’s so great to hear peoples opinions about us who do not have an Arooga’s in their area yet.  We look forward to coming back to see all the new friends we met, a new Ghost Face Challenge Shirt and more delicious wing sauces for all to try!



The Arooga's Buffalo Crew!

Simply the Best Gala

by Nikki



This is always one of our favorite food sampling events.  It is hosted each year by Harrisburg Magazine at the Radisson in Camp Hill.  This was our 3rd year to be lucky enough to serve food at the Simply the Best Gala.  This year we served boneless wings in our Award Winning Almost Everything sauce which I’d highly recommend (Our Hot & Hickory Smoked Honey Barbeque sauce blended together with Garlic and Cajun spices.) along with Garlic Parmesan.  The team also served the guests our Arooga’s baseball bat pretzel bits with cheese wiz and small samples of Arooga’s own quadruple distilled Sagoora vodka which were chilled in fun light up shakers.  Our Route 15 kitchen staff prepared over 350 pretzel sticks and over 1500 wings to be served at the event!

This is always a fun event because our corporate team is able to attend as guests.  It’s nice to sample other restaurants creations and network with people in the same industry.  This year we won “Simply the Best Wings” & “Simply the Best Sports Bar” for the 3rd year in a row.

This year over 10,000 people voted for their Simply the Best favorites on the online poll or through the magazine.  About an hour into the event, Wink 104’s Denny Logan took the stage and started announcing all of the awards for the 2011 Simply the Best winners.  It took about an hour and a half to get through all the different categories.  They have winners in all types of categories from Simply the best hair studio, car dealership, landscaper, etc.  After each winner received their plaque they were directed to get their picture taken in the silent auction area.  This year all proceeds from the silent auction went to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  We were happy to support this cause by donating a nice gift basket with a variety of Arooga’s items.  We have been very active in supporting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society the past couple years with the Man and Woman of the year campaign and our Funds for Friends program.

I’d like to thank everyone for all of their votes and support throughout the years and making Arooga’s Simply the Best!

Biggest Senators Game of the Season and Last Arooga's Promo Night!

By Colleen

As part of our new blog we are going to be showing you some of the fun stuff that goes on at Arooga's. We'll be highlighting some parts of the company that you might not know about and showing you what goes on behind the scenes at Arooga's.

One important part of the Arooga's family is promo team. They go to different events in the area and help spread the Arooga's word. This year, they also attended every Thursday night Senators home game. Here's a little bit of what they experienced at the very last game of the season (which by the way had RECORD SETTING attendence numbers)!

We got there early and watched the team warm up. The quiet before the crowd comes in is kind of fun. John Fogerty's "Centerfield" was playing in my head over and over again.

We met a lot of nice people! Some who already knew what we were all about and some that we got to tell all about Arooga's and what we do. We got lots of new members of the Wingmail club and gave out lots of coupons!

The place was PACKED all night! The line to get food and beer was pretty crazy. This is the one that was right by our tent. It didn't get much shorter than this through out the night.

We got to go down to the third base line and see both Stephen Strasburg and Pudge Rodriguez up close! It was definitely a cool perk for being on the promo team that night.

 

Greg gave Paige some pointers on t-shirt tossing.

Tossing t-shirts is fun!! It's really cool to have all these people screaming for you to throw them a shirt. It makes years of softball practices seem very worth it!

Thanks to our fill in promo girls who came out just to help out at this big game!

And a BIG THANK you to the Harrisburg Senators for an amazing season. Congrats on clinching the Western Division Title, and we'll be rooting for you in the playoffs!



Welcome!

Welcome to the brand new Arooga's blog! Here you will find the latest information about what's going on at Arooga's Grille House & Sports Bar and Brew 22, plus information about what is happening in the restaurant and sports bar industries! Thanks for stopping in and checking us out.