Last year, the restaurant chain sold more than 11 million wings on Super Bowl Sunday. This year, Mr Tick said, he expects to meet or exceed that number, even with his 1,200 restaurants across the country facing various dining restrictions.
“We would expect to see a similar total demand, but an increase in offsite orders and, if I was a bettor, more smaller sized games, so a smaller order as well,” he said.
For millions of people, football fans or not, the Super Bowl has long been an excuse to gather in a bar, restaurant, or someone’s living room to party, eat food that is not healthy. from a distance, throw beer or cocktails and laugh at commercials. Some even pay attention to the game.
“It’s someone’s job to bring the wings,” said Krista Millard, a self-proclaimed football fanatic who is an office manager at an architectural firm in Pittsboro, NC. “Someone else is bringing the beer. Someone is bringing the children’s food. Someone is grilling. There’s a barbecue in North Carolina, sure, and a lot of people hang out, but in reality only four or five of us actually watch the game.
The pandemic has changed this ritual. David Jenkins, a pastor from Los Angeles who goes by DJ, listens to the advice of medical professionals this year. The watch party he has attended in recent years, which typically attracts 50 people, has been canceled. Instead, he’ll watch the game from his sofa, along with his wife, 6-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.
“We’ll make some kind of Velveeta cheese dip – crazy food that I don’t normally have – and then I’ll balance it with celery sticks,” he says.
Los Angeles City Council member Mark Ridley-Thomas planned to order his food well in advance. For the past five years, he has hosted a Super Bowl Viewing Party for about 300 people as a fundraiser for the homeless and emancipated foster children. This year, he’ll be watching the game from his living room sofa and ordering wings from Hotville Chicken.
