71dine

Keep their Heads Wingin' [Part Two]

• 71dine • Episode 4

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What if a food festival could embody an ethos of inclusivity, diversity, and family-friendly enjoyment? Our chat with Maritza, from the Best of the West Wings Fest, truly encapsulates the vibrancy of a community-centered culinary event. Through memorable stories of families, an array of attendees, and mocktail vendors for the underage crowd, we bring you a lively narrative that shows the festival is much more than just about food. We capture scenes of motherhood and munching, of a child's delight in finger-licking goodness, and the happy buzz of a community coming together.

With the intoxicating aroma of wings cooked in unique flavors, we journey through the Best of the West Wings Fest, discussing its profound impact on the community. Hear about the festival favorite winner, whose adobo and orange juice marinated wings shook up the fest, and exciting plans for next year's celebration. Maritza recounts an inspiring story of the festival accommodating a deaf attendee, reinforcing the commitment to inclusivity and accessibility. So, here's an invitation to you, our cherished listeners, to dive into the heart of a family-friendly food festival that's packed with flavor and fun.

Speaker 1:

You're listening to Joe and the seven one dine podcast. Yes, this is Joe and this is the seven one dine podcast. Now, before I get everything rolling on, keep their heads winging part two. I've had some family members reach out to me and saying, Joe, you had us do all these seven one dine mentions these bumpers, these we don't even know what they were, but you had us say seven one dine and you had us say it a lot. So to appease them, I'm going to play the first batch of these mentions from these family members and then maybe they will finally be happy.

Speaker 3:

Seven one dine seven wonal, I seven one dine seven one dial and seven one line, seven one dying one Dеля. Seven one time, one one Constitution 吗 Seven one time seven and one葵.

Speaker 1:

Seven, one Dying Seven.

Speaker 3:

One Dying Seven One Dying Seven. One Dying Seven One Dying.

Speaker 1:

And now everything is right with the world. All kidding aside, fam, I love you. Thank you so much. I'll make sure to incorporate these in future Seven One Dying podcasts, all right. So last I left you, we were wondering if I had a son or if I still had a son. So to answer that question for you, because I know you've been sitting on the edge of the seat that you are sitting in, here we go with part two of Keep their Heads Winging and my conversation with Maritza from the best of the West Wings Fest. I had a son, while I still have a son. I have a son who was nine, ten years old and he's like, hey, dad, can I get down with these wings? And I'm like, yeah, so you know, at a young age he liked them. But I saw these little ones who they just wanted a waffle and they were willing to. Yeah, let's cook you up a waffle. And I just thought it was so welcoming and nobody seems to us.

Speaker 2:

So last year our photographer, alan, our friend and photographer he captured what my favorite picture that I believe encapsulates Wings Fest. And if you go to our Instagram best of the West Wings Fest, all one word if you go on there, you'll see a picture of a mom with her baby strapped to her front and he was I don't know, he was less than a year old for sure and she had a beer in one hand, a wing basket in the other and the baby, his face was full of wing sauce and he was like biting on a chicken wing. Yeah, okay, that's what it's all about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it just yeah. I was blown away and the number of families that just seemed to be having a good time. I think a lot of those families are going to be like hey, we went, this was awesome, Keep it in mind for next year. They're telling their friends and I thought the timing of it because if you were to have it, say, from five to ten at night, that's going to give that. Hey, this is probably 21 and over, but to have it that middle of the day, I thought was just perfect. That kind of says it's indicative of families.

Speaker 2:

You know, I think that it Also one of the things that we did, so sometimes some of these food festivals do include alcohol, right? Yeah and then what happens? Sometimes some of us might Go a little bit overboard, right? Because?

Speaker 2:

it's right, you don't have to think about it, you don't have to pay, there's nothing. So what happens you? You can go a little bit overboard. It happens to the both of us and then that's not conducive to a family environment, right? So we do not include alcohol with our ticket. You do have to purchase your alcohol separately. And you know, I really don't, you know, I really don't think that's a bad thing, because there's plenty of people that didn't drink alcohol. We had a mocktail vendor that also had they were the vendors water 147. They were giving away.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I stopped by there and got a water.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah they. They were giving away free filter drinking water and, if you'd like something a little bit more, they had some mocktails like super fancy gourmet infused with herbs and Juices and things like that mocktails. And I don't know how many people stop me and was like, oh my god, these guys are amazing, you need to have them back next year.

Speaker 1:

And I was like yeah, no problem, yeah, I stopped by there and he's like I. He's like what do you want? I said I like seltzer, I like it fizzy, I don't like it too sweet. And then he's like hey, do you want this? In it it's kind of a calm gin mood. And then you want some agave. And I just like, yeah, man, just throw it in there. And it wasn't, it didn't come across as gimmicky.

Speaker 2:

Right, yes, good, good, good, so, so, yeah. So again, you know Little things like that that you can, that we can include it to make it more inclusive and more family friendly. You know, if one of my friends, that One of our friends from Miami flew over to support us to come to our event and they did not. They were not able to make it last year for an inaugural one, so this year he's been, he's come to visit us quite some, quite a few times In the time that we've been here, and this time he sat down at one of the picnic tables that were provided and he told me he's like you know, maritza, I Don't think I've ever seen Colorado Springs as diverse as I thought in your, without a doubt.

Speaker 2:

They were people from all walks of life. You had your older folks, you had your younger folks, you had the kids people, black people, white people, hispanic people, asian people, everyone, everyone was there. In fact, actually, we had about a week before our event. We had a Deaf person that reached out to us and he was like hey, you know, I'd love to go to your event. It looks like such a cool event.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know that he was deaf and I was like yeah, you know, come, it's gonna be a great time. Bring your friends, bring your family. And he's like well, the problem is that I I'm I'm deaf and I wanted to know do you have any interpreters after your event? And I was like oh, I didn't even think of that, right, and I've never seen an interpreter, at any event in Colorado that I've been to yet. So I was like well, I would love to help you have an amazing time at our event. Can you steer me in the right direction?

Speaker 2:

And he gave me the name of a few different American Sign Language interpreter companies here in town and we made a decision to go ahead and do that. And so we had two interpreters for him that walked around with him during the event and and Helped him have an amazing time, and I think you know we have a friend for life. He's an amazing individual and he had nothing but great things to tell us while we saw him at the event. And I mean, really, it just brought so much joy for me to be able to include Someone else you know, a different, another demographic, someone that I was not even Thinking thinking yeah yeah, it's, it's.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I saw people engaging with each other. I saw people, you know, Two different families, walk away from a, from a food cart or a food truck or one of your vendors. That they weren't together, but they'd walk away, you know, because they had the same wing and they looked at each other like damn, this is good, you know. So they're interacting and you know. Based on that, Maritza, my last question for you is you know, there's so many foods out there, you know different types and like, why do you think there's this connection with wings? There seems to be a different bond with people and wings.

Speaker 2:

I think it's the history of wings. I don't know how much of a wing kind of story you are, but I can tell you briefly that the chicken wing was, quote unquote, created of state New York at, supposedly, the anchor bar right.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And they accidentally ordered wings and so, so that it wouldn't be a cost, a loss for them, they decided to put them on the menu and it, you know, it took off from there quite literally. And then you know when are the times that people eat wings. People eat wings at football games. And what are people doing at football games? They're coming together for a purpose. They're coming together for the love of a team. They want to win together. They have this shared love right, and I think that that's what wings do when people go. You know you're having a barbecue with your friends and your families and your house and your backyard. You know if you're grilling up something, you're grilling wings they're on there. They're they're on the menu at so many events and parts of our lives that that bring us together. So I think that that is why you have that. Everyone takes their wing place seriously. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I remember calling a local vendor this is a number years ago, five, six years ago or so and I remember calling a local restaurant about four o'clock and he was very, very nice. But I said hey, you know, can I put it in an order for wings? And he just started laughing, and I started laughing too and he goes you're calling me at four o'clock. You know, two and a half hours between the Raiders and Broncos Monday night game.

Speaker 2:

Like I can't help you.

Speaker 1:

And I understood and he was super cool about it. But I thought, man, I'm not going to call any more wing places because they're probably the same.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and, and you know, back home in Miami, whenever you MP University of Miami or the Dolphins and you know it's hard to be a dolphin, Right, we love the dolphins, we love the Broncos. Now too, you know, we're adopting our Colorado team as well.

Speaker 2:

But back home we would go to our favorite wing place and you know we would put that order in a few days before to make sure that we were they were able to accommodate all the wings and we would take we would always be the ones to take wings with us to whatever house party we were watching the game at, or even if we were doing some tailgating, you know, before the game we would take wings with us too. And you know it's funny. You said something earlier about trying to duplicate someone's recipe here in town and flip to this day still, whenever he makes wings he tries to make his wings like the place in South Florida and he tries to duplicate that and he's done pretty darn close.

Speaker 2:

Right, we'll tell you but I'm more than welcome to taste all his variations of that same wing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, exactly, and you know everybody has that story of oh man, when we lived in ecstate or eccity, this guy would make these wings and everybody has their own twist. Everyone will do mild, medium, hot. I remember watching a TV show on the Food Network where this guy was cooking hot wings. He had to wear a gas mask and I thought, okay, that's a little too hot for me. But then they have those unique flavors I can imagine in Miami you probably have like a Cuban spice dry rub or something that would come from that area.

Speaker 2:

Well, funny enough, our festival favorite winner he also took quite a few other. He took two other winning categories as well was lost sauces from Denver and his wing was the spicy Cuban and he marinated it in adobo and orange juice and slices and all those Caribbean type. Sason To me what he sent to me his description of his wing. When I asked all the restaurants for that, most of them just gave me the name and a little description of what it is. He went above and beyond. He gave me the name, the description, and he gave me like what he was doing, and I was so tempted to screenshot that and put that up on our social media because my mouth was salivating.

Speaker 2:

It was all the work that he was putting into. That was phenomenal and his hard work paid off. The people loved it. The people ate it up for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I've had Jamaican jerk type chicken wings, I've had curry chicken wings. I mean that's what I'm talking about is the people adding a culture.

Speaker 2:

Next year. We didn't have any this year. Next year I want someone to have chickens. I want someone to have a curry chicken wing, I want a Korean wing. I know that there's a brand new Korean chicken place not too far from our home right now and it was just when they opened up. It was just too close to Wing Bus and so they weren't able to join us this year, but I'm hoping to bring them in for next year.

Speaker 2:

I want to be able to represent as many amazing different cultures that bring that create Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs has grown so much, even in just the three years that we've been here. We hear it from people that have been here for 10 years, for people that have been here their whole lives. We hear all the changes going on and we want to be representative of that. That's why we have the different bands that we do with different sounds. We don't want it to just be one sound. We appreciate all of those festivals that do have one sound, but that's not what we're about. We want it to be a little bit of everyone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'm looking forward to when I hear from you about a restaurant that doesn't do chicken wings necessarily and somebody went to the chef and said, hey, can you do a chicken wing? And that person's like, hell, yeah, watch this. And then they're entering it for that, marketing that, making those connections and, like you said, from Buffalo, maybe just by stroke of pure luck, now chicken wings is on the menu.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's one of the things that we like about it too, because now all these people that came to Wings us, they're going to look at those little wing passports that they had and they're going to take those home with them and they're going to be like, oh, we need to go and visit this place, those wings were great. And then what other foods are they going to now try? They're going to go and take business to all these different places.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I can imagine myself. You know I need to go to flighty foul because I need a whole plate of those peanut butter bacon jammin, but I'm sure that's for every vendor. You know it's like hey.

Speaker 1:

Yeah you know, I had a great taste. My wing was humongous, but I need, I need more. But I also want to see yeah, hey, what else does he have on here? Because you know I'm a big fan of when things sound unique. Like the first time they saw a money crystal, I was like, okay, wait a minute. You're gonna take two different types of cheese Turkey ham, make it like French toast, put powdered sugar on it and I dip it in raspberry jam.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So when I was looking at that peanut butter bacon jam and I was like, yeah, that is something I have to try.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and his new flavor this year was the Palisade peach habanero. That was delicious, it was amazing. But I can't wait to see what he's gonna come up with next year and, just like all of them all of them they're gonna come back next year. And they are, they're all gonna kill it and I'm so looking forward to continued growth of this. We are so thankful you know the response that we have received so grateful. The city has really taken us in and shown us some love, and we want to. All we want to do is to continue to create value and and Fun, cool new ways of all of us interacting with each other.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, and I think I think that's one thing that some people miss is you know, you, you forget the fact that you're gonna get out of the community what you put into it, and it's and it's up to you, meaning that understood you to get involved, rather than just sit back and wait for the community to reach out to you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, we were kind of a bit selfish as to why we started all the things that we did when we came here. I mean, both my husband and I are Born and raised in Miami and although we've traveled all over the world, we've never lived anywhere else. And you know, we had our five-year plan to move over here and we did. If we we didn't just talk about it, we did it. But we could have come here and Just cut to ourselves or we could have gone to whatever events were going on and and been happy with that and tried to meet people in that way, but we didn't. We saw a gap in the market and and we said that we could fill it with our, with our dreams and our visions, and little by little they're becoming reality and Again, we love it. We're so grateful, so so very grateful.

Speaker 1:

I bet what's your next event? You probably don't want to talk about it right now.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know there's. You know, sometimes we need to dial in and we need to focus, and I truly think that the only reason why WingFest was the way that it was this year was because we had the foresight to step back and analyze what we really wanted and our two monthly events, our nerd night and our memoirs. We did have to scale back and we had to stop those events, so we had very little time. Right, time is money and time is the valuable thing here. Right, you're not going to get time back. You can get money back, but you can't get time back.

Speaker 1:

No, you sure can't.

Speaker 2:

So we had to invest all of our extra time to WingFest to be able to make this a reality. So right now we do have our memoirs event. We have a friend of ours that has decided that they want to try to take that back up and represent that event. That's happening next Wednesday, the 27th, at the Alexander Public Health off of Fillmore and Nevada.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So we're going to go and support him with that endeavor and see how that goes. I think that for the foreseeable future, we want to continue to nourish WingFest.

Speaker 2:

And we want to continue to put the attention that it really deserves and that it needs to continue the growth in the right direction. So I think that that is all that we are capable of doing at the moment. Now that's not to say that maybe in the future we're able to hire a team to continue to create amazing events in the city, and I would love that. I would love to do that. So we'll see. We'll just see what the future brings. I'm not quite sure.

Speaker 1:

Right on. Well again, what a great event. I appreciate you letting me come visit it and just again, well done.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Thank you so much, bro. We appreciate you for coming out hanging out having a good time and we hope to continue to work together and see you at the next one.

Speaker 1:

Yes, ma'am, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

No problem, anytime.

Speaker 1:

Yes, ma'am, enjoy the rest of your day.

Speaker 2:

Thank you you too, take care. You too.

Speaker 1:

And there you have it, the conclusion of our keep their heads winging part to and our conversation with Maritza from the best of the West Wings Fest. All right For the second episode that we'll have coming up in the next few weeks. I need you to put your ear a little bit closer to the speaker, maybe even turn your headphones up. I've always wanted to make a recommendation, a restaurant recommendation, to a friend, someone I know personally, someone I know so personally that I know the type of food that they love. And so I reached out to my friend, sarah, and I told her your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to head down to old Colorado City and visit, experience, one of the best Greek restaurants Colorado has to offer.

Speaker 1:

That's right, I'm talking about Jake and Telly's. She had to do this, complete this clan destined mission without me, so that she could report back to all of us, uninhibited and unadulterated, a true and concise and honest report on her explorations. And with that, just one more Thank you. Thank you so much for tuning in to keep their heads winging part to, looking so forward to the next few weeks. The response still has been overwhelming and I can't thank you enough. Southern Colorado. Again thanks to Maritza for joining me and until next time.

Speaker 3:

Don't forget, you can find the 7 One Dine podcast on Spotify, Apple, Google, Stitcher, basically wherever podcasts are located. That's where we'll be Visit us at 7onedinecom.