Wings and Rings is sticking with what it knows.
The 40-year-old brand, named after its chicken wing and onion ring offerings, is a month away from launching a new fast-casual chicken concept called Noble Chicken.
Noble Chicken’s grand opening is scheduled for January 27, an endcap location in Cincinnati. But the brand has technically been around longer; the company tested a ghost kitchen and opened its first spot in a nearby supermarket in 2020. Wings and Rings CEO Nader Masadeh came up with Noble Chicken in 2019 after brainstorming ways to diversify the franchise portfolio and go undercover in a local chicken wing contest.
Then known as Buffalo Wings and Rings, the company entered Cincinnati’s Queen of the Wing contest with the same menu offerings but under a different name, looking to prove a chain restaurant could compete with independent brands. The name, styled as NBL CKN, was a play on the company’s former tagline: “Great food, no bull.” Noble Chicken won that year’s contest.
Thomas Flaherty is the chief development officer at Wings and Rings.
Being self-described “chicken experts” drove Wings and Rings to grow the brand half a decade later, Chief Development Officer Thomas Flaherty said.
“We thought, ‘What if we do full-service offering in the portfolio, and we do a fast-casual offering?’ It’s a smaller footprint, simpler to operate, less equipment, less complication, less labor needed,” he said.
The chicken wing segment is riddled with players, many touting a large number of units: Wingstop has more than 2,400 stores, Buffalo Wild Wings has 1,200-plus and Zaxby’s is closing in on 1,000 locations. Wings and Rings sits at 85 units, 59 of those domestic.
Flaherty said Wings and Rings considered building a quick-service model under the same name or changing its menu to include Noble Chicken’s food, but a diversification play felt like a better strategy to please customers and franchisees.
The team also wanted to reduce confusion over brand identity and menu changes.
“We didn’t want there to be confusion where you walk into one Wings and Rings, and it’s this big, 5,000- to 6,000-square-foot sports restaurant and bar with a full bar and servers. Then you go into this ‘express’ and it’s like, ‘You don’t have a bar or you don’t have that favorite item you would have had on the menu at the other store,’” Flaherty said. “It has the potential to create confusion with consumers, so that’s why we did the play on Wings and Rings but through Noble Chicken.”
Flaherty highlighted Noble Chicken’s three points of differentiation: bold and unique flavors, unique branding and robust portions.
Vintage Americana is the brand’s theme, with an aesthetic focused on road tripping through the United States. Wings and Rings dropped Noble Chicken’s royal imagery—the old logo featured a crown-adorned chicken—for a fierce chicken logo that could double as a patch on a leather bomber jacket, circling back to the Americana feel.
The menu plays with the road trip concept, offering sides of Nashville hot coleslaw, hatch chile mac and cheese, ghost pepper cheese sticks and hush puppies from the Gulf Coast. Noble Chicken’s primary offerings are wings, tenders, sandwiches and salads.
“This is a hyper-competitive space,” Flaherty said. “We have a 40-year pedigree serving delicious chicken, so we kind of know what we’re doing from that perspective. We’ve got decades of franchise support experience, which is also helpful.”
Flaherty predicts two or three Noble Chicken locations will open in 2025. The first unit opening in January is a corporate restaurant, but the following locations are expected to be franchised.
Wings and Rings is offering the opportunity first to its existing franchisees, as Flaherty said many have asked for a lower-cost franchise.
The difference in investment costs reflects this. The initial investment to operate a Noble Chicken ranges from $449,750 to $698,342, about a third of Wings and Rings’ range of $1,449,700 to $1,948,700.
“It is possible to have focus on two brands,” said Flaherty, adamant about Noble Chicken not pulling attention from the main priority of Wings and Rings.
“It’s just another type of restaurant that we’re already familiar with and food we’re already intimately familiar with,” he added. “I think there will be an investment appetite and a literal food appetite.”