National Buffalo Wing Festival 2012

I've always heard from my co-workers that the National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, NY was really cool... but I really had no idea what I was getting myself into! I usually have fun at our promo events, but this was definitely the MOST fun event I've done.

We met a TON of really cool people from all over the country, including lots of Arooga's fans! We befriended other restaurants who love buffalo wings as much as we do. We even met people who can eat more chicken wings in one sitting than I even want to think about. We met the WORLD CHAMPION competitive chicken wing eater and the LEGEND that he defeated! We do a lot of wing eating competitions in our store, and they're always really fun, but watching this was a whole different ball game.

We brought 6 different sauces with us to serve to the people of Buffalo: Hickory Smoked Honey BBQ, Buffalo Bleu, Kangarooga, Almost Everything, Kinda Hot, and Sudden Death. We got a TON of positive feedback on all of them. Especially the Buffalo Bleu! We had people coming back all day to get more of them.

We also won a 2nd place trophy for our Sudden Death sauce in the Extra Hot category! The people who tasted it told us it has a lot of flavor with a huge kick. We have to agree!

Here's a collection of pictures to give you all a better idea of everything we did:

Our tent!

We sold a ton of sauce bottles this weekend, too!

Mario & Alex are AWESOME! They kept the sauces moving!

The whole crew!

Mmmmmmmm wings...

Arooga's MVPs Time & Ashley!

We even brought Sudden Death with us!

Thanks to our friend from La Nova for the huge, delicious pizza! Check them out if you're ever in Buffalo!

I ran into Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas as I was coming out of the bathroom! She's a 6 time wing-eating champion at Buffalo and a competitive eating LEGEND!

Adam and I ran into Joey Chestnut right before he took the stage to win the Buffalo Buffet Bowl

We knew that we won something... but it was still nerve-wracking waiting to hear what it was!

Drew "The Wing King" Cerza making the announcements

We won 2nd place for Extra Hot with our Sudden Death sauce!

Randi and Ian are showing off the new bling!

Check out Linda's vintage Arooga's t-shirt! Love it!

And this shirt was just too funny to not get a picture of it!

Adam and I with IFOCE President George Shea and Competitive Eater/Rapper Eric Badlands Booker

This is Yasir Salem, he competed at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest at Coney Island AND ran a triathlon!

It was REALLY hot! Ian was doing whatever possible to stay cool in the shade!

George Shea is spreading the word!

Joey Chestnut came with the upset! Beat Sonya Thomas by eating 191 wings in 12 minutes!

Adam, Joey Chestnut, me, and THE TROPHY!

This is OUR trophy!

Adam and me with our friend, Badlands Booker!

We got to meet a whole bunch of the top competitive eaters in the world!

Drew is hanging with the new trophy!

It was a great weekend! We are all exhausted... but it was so worth it! We are already looking forward to next year's festival. Thank you to everyone who came to see us in Buffalo, to the Arooga's team for the fantastic job they all did, and special thanks to Drew Cerza and the entire staff and all of the volunteers at the National Buffalo Wing Festival for being great hosts and making our experience a great one!