Buffalo wings, $.25 on Monday nights. They come in sweet bbq too!
By now half of NYU must have heard about this because this past Monday, there was a mob in Rockwell’s and it was only 6:15pm, 15 minutes after the deal started. It felt like a reunion seeing as I saw people who I hadn’t seen in three and a half years.
But yes, 25 cent wings. When you think about it, it’s still not THAT cheap. For a New Yorker however, it’s pretty cheap. Wings can go as high as $10 for just 8 of them. So when you think about it like that… it’s not so bad. Nevertheless, that got me curious, so I ran a simple calculation (this is what all of my case-ing preparation with Sagar has amounted to!)
By my very, very conservative estimates, I arrived to $547 for profits. That’s taking into account:
- USDA wholesale wing prices are $1.55 for the month of November
- 1 pound = 10-12 medium wings (I used 10 wings in my calculations)
- Peak times at 6-7pm
- Girls will order less wings than guys
- Rockwell’s can serve a customer every 20-30 seconds, or 1 per minute because there are 3 stations (that was my serving time, roughly.)
That was a pretty low number, so I adjusted it…
At $684, I guess it’s not too bad, especially considering how it’s a Monday night and this deal really generates traffic. Also, we’re talking about a $.10 margin here. Additionally, as Sagar mentioned, people will buy sodas as they are complementary goods (and maybe even fries!). If you’re interested, for any reason in the sensitivity of this analysis, you can tinker with it here. Let me know if my estimates are on, off, or near the mark if you know anything about the profitability of wings!
If you ARE going to go on Monday nights for these wings, either get there early or brace yourself with the wait. They’re not the most efficient in getting orders out, as in they don’t really care about who ordered first. But to their credit, they do try and if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant during peak time, you’d feel sympathetic too. On the other hand, when I opened the box…
- There were only nine wings! Ah! I ordered 10!
- One wing wasn’t a wing. I’m not sure what it was exactly…
They automatically pack you a generous portion of ranch sauce, but don’t forget to check out some of their other awesome sauces like chipotle mayo and this other pale orange one, which I recall had the name ‘kickin’ in it. For $.25/wing, the wings are good enough. You can tell that they’re really rushed when making the wings, so I let them go on the calculation error.
On a regular night, people would order something like that- a cheeseburger. Despite the $.25 wings deal, Elspeth and Jungyon both ordered a cheeseburger. I’d rate it a 6 on a scale from 1-10. I mean, it’s a burger, but it’s no Shake Shack or Corner Bistro.
53 E 8th St
New York, NY 10003
(212) 677-4400
You should also check out:
- Kenka: for your late night eating (and drinking) needs
- Late Night run to Shake Shack and Pomme Frites
- Big Wing Wong
- Hagi Sake Bar: Late night cheap grub
- Crif Dogs & 2 Bros Pizza= Good + cheap late night grub near NYU
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not a fan of rockwells :/ … admittedly I’ve only tried their burgers. but still~