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71dine
71dine, the podcast that invites you on an immersive journey through the heart and soul of southern Colorado. Whether you're a seasoned local or a first-time explorer, join us as we savor the rich flavors and craft lasting memories together. Welcome to where southern Colorado's captivating narrative unfurls through its vibrant people, rich culture, and delectable cuisine. Join us as we delve into the tapestry of this extraordinary region, one episode at a time, celebrating the people, the culture, and the food that make it truly exceptional.
71dine
Keep their Heads Wingin' [Part One]
Imagine this: the smell of crispy fried chicken wings wafting through the air, the buzz of a lively crowd, and the unique charm of local and out-of-town businesses showcasing their culinary prowess. That was the electrifying atmosphere at Maritza and Flip's Best of the West Wings Fest, a family-friendly festival designed to celebrate and promote Colorado Springs' burgeoning food scene. Hear us reminiscing about the heartwarming community spirit that filled the air, the mouthwatering offerings, and how this event is offering a remarkable platform for businesses to grow and thrive.
We promise you'll be captivated as we share our colorful encounters with festival goers, vendors, and even the ecstatic winner of the wing eating contest. We'll take you through the origins of this fantastic event, starting from a simple love for chicken wings, to becoming a beacon of community gathering. Together with Maritza, we'll explore the promising growth of the 7-1-9 festival, the friendly competition among local restaurants, and the amazing business opportunities it presents. And let's not forget the kids, their joy and the special care that was taken to make them feel included. So if you're a food lover or a fan of community-led initiatives, this episode is sure to feed your soul.
You're listening to Joe in the 7 One Dine podcast. Yes, this is the 7 One Dine podcast and I am Joe. Now, if you've listened to any of the previous episodes, you would know that this past Saturday, september 16th, I attended the Best of the West Wings Fest Great event put on by Maritza and her husband Flip. I was blown away by the amount of people, families, vendors, chicken wings that were available. Highly recommend that you put this on your to look out for list. Save the date for next September, no doubt.
Speaker 1:Now, prior to this event jumping off, I reached out to Maritza through a mutual friend. She wanted to know a little bit more about 7 One Dine. I went over basically everything I've gone over with you. We both saw a common connection with wanting to kind of be a part of the community and help the community come together. So at that point I decided that I would be attending that Best of the West Wings Fest as more of an observer from 7 One Dine, although I did get a chance to enjoy the festivities also as a visitor.
Speaker 1:It was during that initial conversation that Maritza and I decided that we would get together after the event. As you can imagine, this took so much time and devotion and again it was so spectacular, super impressed, and I know there was a lot of hard work put in by Maritza and her husband. So, as I mentioned, we decided to do a decompression, talk about things after the event and so, again, unedited, enjoy. Oh, what's going on, you know, just a normal Wednesday, I guess, is what you might call it. How about you? Have you recovered and caught your breath and the dust settled?
Speaker 2:A little bit. Yes, I'm looking forward to a little getaway this weekend, so we'll be going heading and visiting Brats, staying there for a few days to decompress.
Speaker 1:Right on. Yeah, I think you need to take that time to decompress and kind of because I'm sure you were go, go, go, go, and then it finally comes to a stop and you're like okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's basically how it is.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, I'm going to go ahead, if it's okay with you, and record this. It's always better if people hear from from you or the restaurants or whoever it might be, rather than me trying to retell what I've heard, if that's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, like I said in my email, I just thought the event was incredible. It was well put on. I got to talk to Triple G, the gentleman who won, and the, the buffalo, the I'm sorry, the wing eating contest.
Speaker 2:So he was super cool. Yeah, the most wings and he told me.
Speaker 1:I said how'd you do? He goes. Well, it's not my first rodeo. So I thought, well right, so yeah, a well done, well done event. What? What made you guys start with the with the wing contest? I'm sorry, not the wing contest. What made you guys start with the, the wing fest in general?
Speaker 2:So my husband, flip, is a big chicken wing guy. He's a kind of sword, if you'd like to call him that, and no matter where we've gone all throughout the world and our travels, if there's chicken wing on the menu, he's going to order them. We have a favorite place in South Florida. They have several locations and that is his like absolute favorite, right, yeah? And so we moved here to Colorado Springs three years ago in July.
Speaker 2:It was three years that we've been here and as shortly after we moved here, we started doing monthly events. We had memoirs true stories unfiltered and we had nerd night, cos, which were monthly events, and you know different aspects of those events. One of them got nerd night with a teaching event, and the other one, memoirs, was a true storytelling event to try to get to know people within our community on a deeper level, being that we did not have those deep connections here yet because we were new to the area and we didn't really know anyone. And in doing those monthly events, we realized that Colorado Springs takes their Facebook groups very seriously. So we started becoming members of a bunch of different Facebook groups online and there was this one group called Colorado Springs word of mouth, I believe it was, and a gentleman came on there and he said that he had just moved to the town, to the city, and he needed to know who had the best wings. Oh, nice.
Speaker 2:And of course everyone started tagging their favorite restaurants. And my husband saw that and he was like I'm going to follow this post and see what people do, because I need to visit all of these places. So he started following along and he created a little Excel spreadsheet on all the different restaurants that we needed to visit. And then one day a gentleman responded and he's like, oh, there was a wingfest where I lived. And someone else said the same thing. And then Chuck was like wait a minute, in South Florida we had a winging. So, you know, he took to the almighty Google and he typed in wingfest, Colorado Springs and nothing. And then he typed in wingfest, Colorado and absolutely nothing, crickets. So he was like wait a minute, I can't live in a place that doesn't have a wingfest.
Speaker 2:So we have a friend of ours from Miami that moved to Colorado with his wife, to the Denver area and then Boulder, and now they live in Fair Play at 11,000 feet on the mountain and he's a natural landscape photographer and him and his wife like to go camping and hiking and they like to go to a lot of festivals and stuff. So he called him and he was like hey, Alan, what you know, have you been all around Colorado in three years now and have you been to a wingfest? And he was like no, no, I haven't. You think it would be a good idea for us to start one. And you know, here we are just finished year two of Best of the West Wingfest and we've gotten an amazing response from the community. So super exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know you can do this with with every food. But what I've noticed through my travels is pizza, chinese and wings. Everybody has their favorite. Yeah, you can have your favorite Italian restaurant or Mexican restaurant and people take their pizza, their Chinese and their wings very seriously and they know their restaurant is the best.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And so to see those wings and those people that came out, I was just, you know, I didn't expect the event to be like a minimalist event, so to speak, but it was way bigger, specifically the wing restaurants that were represented.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, so you know, originally we had 18 wing restaurants that were signed up and, for whatever reason you know, within a couple of weeks before the event, we did unfortunately have a few of them back out. Some of them had family emergencies, other ones had other things pop up, so it was unfortunate. We did have a total of 16 restaurants that were signed up. One of them unfortunately also was a no-call-no show. So I still haven't heard from those folks and I'm hoping that everything with them is okay. But you know, our goal this year was 20 restaurants. Last year, in our inaugural year, we had 13 restaurants represented and we had 28 local small business vendors at our inaugural event in 2022. So here we are 2023, year two, and we had 16 restaurants represented and we had 55 local small business vendors represented. So last year we had a total of about 501 attendees and this year we had upwards of 700.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And that's not including the other people that were there for those vendors. So just in vendors alone vendors and chicken wing restaurants alone we had more than 200 people. So this year we had a. You know we were pushing that almost 1000.
Speaker 1:Almost 1000?.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we had way over a 25% growth in the course of just a year and our vision for this festival is to continue to grow. We want thousands of people. This year we had restaurants from Denver that were represented. Next year we want restaurants from Arizona. We want restaurants from Wyoming, from Utah All of our amazing western states to be represented because, at the end of the day, this is not the best of Colorado Springs Wing Fest, if not best of Colorado Wing Fest is best of the West. So we need to make sure that if our Colorado Springs and the remainder of Colorado wing restaurants want to, you know, continue to be featured, they need to step up their game. They need to step it up and see what everyone wants and make those adjustments, make those changes and bring it to year three.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, albuquerque has an amazing balloon festival you know hot air balloons and Colorado Springs has. It's a smaller balloon festival, but it's not small by any stretch of the imagination. So I love how you guys started out with best of the West. You have that big picture in mind where you want to draw folks from you know nearby, from the West, and make this a a big event where it's so much you know, because I saw a number of Denver vendors, you know so to have that scope and that idea ahead of time. I also love the fact that you had a mixture of folks that focus 100% on wings and then you had the local restaurants and bars and pubs that also offer wings represented and I thought that was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, I'm so glad that you mentioned the Labor Day Lift Off here in Colorado Spring, because Labor Day Lift Off, as well as Territory Days and a few other events that have been in our city for a long, long time now, those are considered heritage events and our goal is to have Wing Fast be a heritage event.
Speaker 2:That is the designation that we want. You know, we have just in Colorado Springs alone, we have over 150 restaurants that have wings on the menu. So you know we are a chicken wing town, we are a chicken wing city and, the same way as the Labor Day Lift Off and the Territory Days and other events do bring in people from all over the country and all over the world, we want that for Wing Fast as well. So this our inaugural year, I believe I might not speak here, but I believe we had a total, we're able to track where our tickets are being purchased from, and I believe we had a total of six states that purchased tickets last year. This year, the last time that I checked and I haven't checked the numbers in a few days now since we're, you know, trying to come down from that Wing Fast high is 12. So this year, we basically doubled the amount of tourists that were coming to our event.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it just you know, there's a restaurant here in town and I'm hoping to talk to them soon about 7-1-9, but I was surprised they weren't there. And it's, you know, as I talked to these people at your event and I talked to these restaurants, a lot of them have their signature wing, and it's this one. It's called Hot Yaki and it's basically a buffalo and a teriyaki mix. But you know, if I were to make those wings here at the house, I could mix, you know, buffalo sauce and teriyaki, but I'm not going to get the portions, the proportions correct, and so I just think there's so much that's going to be happening, like with 7-1-9,.
Speaker 1:You know, I didn't expect to have thousands of listeners right off the bed. I have that bigger picture. So all you have is that opportunity for growth, and I think sometimes maybe these restaurants will think well, yeah, we serve wings, but we're not a wing place. And I think this is so much more than just a wing place.
Speaker 2:It's so much more so. Not only is Best of the West Wing Fest a fun, family-friendly festival for attendees, but it is a place where chicken wing restaurants or restaurants that serve chicken wings, food trucks, personal chefs all of them can come together and meet each other and talk. This is friendly competition. We're not going to be mean and nasty to each other. In fact, there was an issue where one of the restaurants had never done something like this before and they were, you know, completely lost, had no idea how to approach any of this. I put them in an email, in contact with three other participants, two of which were veterans from our first, our inaugural year, and you know they they reached out to that, to that restaurant, and they told them, like you know, here, this is what you need to do, this is how you need to think of it, these are the items that you're going to need.
Speaker 2:So, you know, it's that camaraderie coming together, and then, after the festival, we had a few of the winners and a few of the other restaurants that didn't win anything. They reached out to us and they're, like you know, thank you so much for putting this together. We have some collaborations that are going to come out of this. So you know it's working together, it's shining a light on community, on bringing people together for the love of food and, you know, being there showing up for one another. So we did have. You know this is a marketing. This is like a marketing opportunity for all sorts of local community businesses as well as businesses that are, you know, maybe a little bit further. We had a restaurant and a coffee truck that was interested, from Polida, but things happened last minute and neither of them were able to make it. But they definitely said put it down for next year. We're going to be there next year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I left your point that you made about the community and the camaraderie because I saw vendors, you know, I saw restaurants visiting other restaurants and they're talking and how did you do this? And it was just yeah, like this community. And then, when the awards were being given out, I saw every single vendor head down to the stage and I didn't see, I didn't see I'll say this a different way. I saw everybody Cheering for the winners and I even saw some people going oh yeah, I'm not surprised she won, I'm not surprised he won like Nobody was. I didn't see anybody upset at any of the winners because they had tried everybody else's. They're like oh yeah, that was, that was really good stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, I think that that is maybe To the way that a flip and I have presented this to everyone, you know, when we have this, like last year, flip went to over a hundred restaurants in person to Present to them this idea and to show them a deck that we put together and really, you know, I'm stress and working home the idea that this is community.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a competition and everyone wants to have a trophy. I totally understand that and it feels bad when you don't win. You know, I, at my heart, goes out to we, you know, to the people that didn't Bring home anything this year. You know, our first year, which was last year, we only had two trophies that we gave out. It was just two spots. It was festival favorite, which was just one, one winner, and then it was best saw to dry rub, which again was just one winner.
Speaker 2:Yeah this year we wanted to expand that, that offering, and and be more inclusive. And you know it did cost us more money. Those trophies, they're no joke, oh yeah. But we partnered with a local trophy company called classical designs. Those guys, they do millions of dollars of worth of recognition materials all over the world and they are five minutes from our house in on the west side of Colorado Springs. You would never know it. They're so talented, those artists there and the people that put the trophies together.
Speaker 2:We worked with them and we're like okay, how can we do this, that we can do third, second and first place for more categories and then leave the festival favorite as just one standalone category? And we were able to, you know, rejoice with all of those vendors in in their winnings. And it really does that. You know, hurt my heart To the ones that did not get to win anything this year. Well, hopefully they will be back next year and they'll set it up some more. That's the whole point of this is to help grow the food scene in Colorado Springs. I'm sure that you're aware that the Michelin ceremony happened in Denver.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:About a week or so ago. And guess what? Colorado Springs is left out of the game.
Speaker 1:Which is surprising with with the Broadmoor here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of politics, I think, that are involved in in that Michelin star Whole process, but guess what? There's not. Any of that involves in bus to the West Wing Fest.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't. Is something where?
Speaker 2:the people are the ones that voted, so I hope that you were able to vote, joe. Oh yes and and use our sophisticated voting system that we had online, and I had to log in to the back end of that system. You know, just 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes before I was up on stage announcing all those winners, I was, you know, logged in there and making sure that everything was working properly and and all the winners were represented accurately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that was one of my main things with creating 7-1 Dine was, you know, I don't. I don't. We have enough review sites out there and some of them, to be honest, are worthless. You know, if I'm being honest and I'm talking about the big ones, but I I didn't want to do any negative reviews and I also don't want to be the one who says this is the best wing or this is the best people. Sorry, this is the best pizza.
Speaker 1:I want people to go out and try it for themselves. You know, here's the story behind it, here's the food behind it, here's their culture. You know, whatever might be their influences and then they go out and make a decision. You know so many restaurants in in this industry With specific to wings. They, they all offer something that's worthwhile, and so why should I tell them this is the best and this is the best? I want you to try both and then come back and say so. You, the fact that you had the people voting. You know it's. What do they like? You know, and and I'm excited to see when these restaurants because I know it's going to happen for next year they're going to start working On recipes, if they haven't already like hey, we got to come up with the new. Something new for the best of the west wing fest. Yes, you know yes.
Speaker 1:And it's going to be amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, we thought, approached by some pretty high profile community movers and shakers and they wanted to be judges, and I said I'm sorry but that's not what our event is about. We are not. We're not here for it to have judges. We don't have a panel of judges with quote unquote, superior pallets, you know, to disseminate upon us normal folk, right, but what they think is the best, you know, this is just a people's choice. This is the people that were at the festival. They got to vote and make their voices heard. Now, that's not to say that we won't have, you know, maybe in coming years we won't have some celebrity people come by and encourage a certain one and be like, oh, I really liked this one over here, or this one really is interesting and different, or something like that. You know, give their opinions, but they're not going to be, you know, awarding the actual trophies. It's the way that we see it and that we like to keep. It is for the people to be the ones to make that choice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's great. You could always have and I'm just throwing stuff out making it up you could always have the head of city council and the mayor and chief of police or whatever. You know who can eat the hottest wing or something like that. But keeping it, you know, like seven when dying. You know it sounds like you want to present this and have the people you know make that decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And it makes sense, because if you're talking about community, that's what it is. It's the people, like I talked to a few of the restaurants who had some time. You know, I didn't want to interrupt them, but just to hear their passion for what they do and where they came from. You know it was. You know one gentleman had worked as a head chef in a restaurant here in town and then he and his wife talked and they decided to. You know, do this food truck?
Speaker 2:And that's slightly follow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Eli and Eli Patterson and Mariah and their family. Last year they were the festival favorite winners with their PB Jam and wing.
Speaker 1:Yes, which was awesome.
Speaker 2:And bacon jam, yep, and they were only in business for a month last year when they won that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So and when I walked by their food truck and I spoke to Eli for a bit and I told him what I do and he totally wants to meet and we're going to set that up. But he walked by and you see, this guy in this food truck and he and his wife, I did not see them. I didn't see them not smiling the whole time, you know. And I want to go back to something you said, because I did notice the number of families. You know, I saw kids with their face painted and they had ice cream and, you know, as a husband and a wife and their kids, and I thought, man, that is just so perfect because, you know, you could think of a wing fest and you could think, boy, it's a bunch of guys at a bar, you know, and not that there's anything wrong with that, I was so impressed with the number of families, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I will tell you, Joe, that We've been to quite a few festivals, food festivals, especially here in Colorado. In our time, in our very short time here, you know, our goal has been, as new residents of this state, to Explore as much of it as possible. So we we take that job of the heart and the. What I have seen the trend is is that everything is 21 plus 21 plus 21 plus. Especially, you go to Denver to all the food.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah festivals that are in Denver. They're all 21 plus. Well, what happens to the mom and the dad that want to have their kids come along with them? What you know? What the small children you know, the ages of five, six, seven, or the babies, you know? No, this would be a family affair. This should involve everyone.
Speaker 2:We wanted to be inclusive of that. We don't want people to have to think, oh well, I need a sitter for this day, you know, because I can't bring my kids to this. You know, we had one of the food trucks. She was cooking, the one of the owners. She was cooking with her baby strapped to her back. Yeah, okay. And then you know, we had flight foul, that you know, the their kids were helping and serving wings to people and that's just that's what this is all about. We had vendors with their little ones there.
Speaker 2:I, one of the vendors, contacted me Like a week or two before. We thought someone's like, oh, like, not the wing vendors, but one of the other regular vendors is like, oh, you know, I can't really find a sitter for the baby, so we're gonna have to pull out. And I was like no, no, no, you don't, you can bring your kid with you, don't worry. Like that's, that's what this is all about. And they're like really, we can bring all the. Yeah, absolutely, just come, come with the kids and you guys can, you know, switch places and go on and off. One person has the kid, one person attends the, the tent, and they're like oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And then, after the fact they saw me, they're like I'm so glad that we didn't pull out. Thank you so much yeah.
Speaker 1:I saw. I saw one vendor there. They they were a chicken wing place, or it might have been the caterer, I can't remember, but they were doing a fried chicken and waffle, chef Shay, and I saw so many kids Just walking around with the plate with a waffle on it and I just thought, like they're they're taking care of the kids. You know some of these kids don't? I had a son, while I still have a son. That sounds like a good spot to break this in half. This is part one. There's probably gonna be a part three, so we'll break this into thirds, just so you know, you'll have to come back to the next episode to see what's going on with my son that I still have and, full disclosure, I actually have sons, that's right.
Speaker 1:Sons times two. You know I always say this how can you not love people? Maritza, instantly, one of my favorite folks, her and her husband flip again put on a very, very special event. I appreciate you being here to listen, to Keep their heads wing. In part one next week We'll dive a little more into the actual event, the people I spoke with and then, obviously, we're gonna speak to some of the vendors that were there, including flighty foul. So, that being said, appreciate you being here and, as always, until next time.
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