B & L Wings, the two-time winner of Atlanta Eats‘ designation for the city’s best wings, will move out of Doraville in January of 2021 to open a more trafficked location in West Midtown at 800 Forrest St NW.
Owner Bradwick Malone, has operated the business alongside his wife Lawonda for three years from a shared kitchen space at 3996 Pleasantdale Rd., only selling on weekends. He told What Now Atlanta that B & L is making the transition to “get to a bigger audience and get to experience what would it feel like to be in the middle of the city.”
The pair met when they worked together at a restaurant and, simply put, they started the business because “[they] love wings.”
“I love to eat wings and everybody else’s wings just tasted plain to me,” said Malone.
So, what’s their secret? Well, like the slogan of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, it’s a taste you can see—it’s all about the seasoning and the breading.
“Pretty much, we just know how to bread a lot of wings,” said Malone. “A lot of people in Atlanta are used to non-breading. We do a lot of our wings breaded. At first, they don’t like the breading, then once they open the box and they see how we coat our wings, they say ‘they’re doing something different than just regular fried wings’… the seasoning comes from the sauce.”
In Atlanta, lemon pepper wings aren’t difficult to find, and hot honey wings are commonplace. At B & L, Malone has combined the two city favorites to create their best-selling product.
“Everybody in Atlanta loves lemon pepper, everybody in Atlanta loves sweet, right? Everybody loves hot. So I decided to put all three of them together,” said Malone. “I’m from Mississippi, [so] I decided to do it a little different, to bring Mississippi flavor to Atlanta.”
A few new sauces are in the works to be unveiled when B & L shifts to the new location. Implored by wing-hungry regulars, the Malones also intend to extend their hours from just weekends to Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m.
“We’ve got some amazing people up here that support the amazing food that we produce every weekend,” said Malone. “We have people that travel for two hours every weekend. When you get that type of love you want to give it your all, go up to people and greet them and make sure that their food is good when they get it—not just looking good, tasting good. That’s what I really love about Atlanta.”
The neighborhood name is Berkeley Park, not West Midtown.
Tomayto, tomahto.
I thought it was the Upper Westside? At least that is what the sign says on Howell Mill when you turn right off of 75 south.