Wings Over Evanston is no more and we Wildcats have lost more than we can imagine.
I was in World of Beer when I heard the news that the beloved fried-chicken delivery business had shuttered its doors. I didn’t believe it. I’d just ordered a DC-10 a week ago. There’s no way Wings Over was gone.
I was in denial. I made excuses for why they weren’t on GrubHub anymore, why their phone line was disconnected. After lamenting over beers, a friend and I walked along Ridge until we reached the strip mall where Wings Over once nested. The lights were off two hours early. A white paper sign on the door read “closed,” while a banner on the store’s side proclaimed, “For Lease.”
Wings Over flew the coop. According to Mark Muenzer, Evanston’s director of community development, a Pizza Hut has applied to take over its spot. A fucking Pizza Hut.
How could this have happened? Almost everyone I know who goes to this school loved Wings Over. The emotional reaction to the news was palpable. Feelings of remorse, anger and shock have engulfed us weary wing-lovers.
But this is not the first time this a restaurant has betrayed us like this, only the most recent. Evanston has changed, and not in a way that undergrads are going to like.
When the Keg was struck down three years ago, it was eventually taken over by Bangers & Lace, an overpriced lounge with a lumberjack fetish. And that’s not the only Evanston classic to go – Augus Tortas vanished without notice, Buffalo Wild Wings shut down last fall, DMK closed for the summer and #RIP Rollin’ To Go. And does anyone even go to Cheesie’s anymore? One way or another, Evanston’s dining scene has shifted dramatically.
In the place of these fallen favorites, overpriced, townie-catering projects have taken over. Smylie Brothers is fine if you want to take out a loan to eat. Boltwood is … something. LYFE Kitchen? Freshii? Pathetic. Even my beloved WOB is just one tchotchke away from being a goddamn Applebee’s. And when the restaurants that move in aren’t alienating to students, they’re just fucking chains, like Blaze (which, to be fair, isn’t bad), Dominos and now Pizza Hut.
At the end of the day, Wings Over closing isn’t the end of the world – Buff Joe’s is still kicking, after all. Yet it isn’t really about the food. The closing of Wings Over further widens the gap between Northwestern students and Evanston. We may pay out the nose to go to school here, but Wildcats like me no longer recognize our home.
Wings Over was integral to an Evanston that I loved. But as the culinary landscape of this city changes, so do students. In another year I’ll be gone, and a whole generation of freshmen entering Northwestern in the fall will never taste the mouth-watering majesty of a Wings Over DC-10.