Is Schottzie’s Bar and Grill the greatest bar in St. Louis? I don’t have the authority to say, as I’m sure I’ve bee to less than 5% of the candidates. Does Schottzie’s serve the best wings in St. Louis? Again, I don’t know, because I don’t have enough information.
What I can tell you is that nearly everything that comes out of their deep frier is amazing, and the pizza is great also. I am also confident in saying that if you’re looking for a bar to have wings at, and you’re willing to drive to south county, I don’t think you can do better than Schottzie’s. The wings are so good.
An order of wings is 1 and 1/4 pounds and costs $7.99. The wings are tiny and crispy and there are like 15 of them in an order. If you order 5 pounds of wings (YOU SHOULD!), it costs $25.99 and comes with a pitcher of beer! That’s an insane deal. 5 lbs of wings, regularly priced on the menu, should cost $31.96. There’s nearly a free pound of wings and a pitcher of beer in there.
You might be thinking “Jon, you’ve already reviewed Schottzie’s twice here. Why do you have to keep telling us about it?”
This is a fair point. But I’m not here to rave about those Hot Buffalo wings that I’ve already reviewed twice. Today, I’m here to tell you about their mustard wings.
Mustard wings seem to be pretty regionally specific to the St. Louis area, and they seem to have been popularized by local wing establishment, Syberg’s (You can see My Review of Syberg’s here.). The issue is that while I like Syberg’s sauce just fine as a change of pace, I don’t love the actual wings themselves.
So, If I know I love a place’s wings, which is the case for Schottzie’s, and I know I like the style of sauce, these wings should be fantastic, right? Yes! They are fantastic. The sauce is a little bit thinner and less overwhelmingly creamy than the Syberg’s sauce that it’s clearly imitating. This is a positive for me as I found Syberg’s mustard sauce to be too thick to enjoy after a couple wings. The thinner sauce let me get through a whole pound easily.
Still, while these mustard wings are fantastic, I don’t get them too often. The Hot wings are still the best things on the menu, and as far as I’m concerned, the best representation of good bar buffalo wings that exists in the St. Louis area. But if you’re looking for a change of pace, these are a winner.
An interesting Schottzie’s Wings anecdote:
There was a terrible time in Schottzie’s history where they were serving larger normal-sized wings. This was particularly traumatic to the change-averse Becker family. This loosely coincided with the short-lived Maplewood Schottzie’s. When we asked at the time about the change, I’m pretty sure we were told there was a supplier mix-up.
However, I got a different story this week. I was caught off guard and a little embarrassed as the waitress caught me taking a picture of my wings.
“I really love these wings,” I said to her, to try to justify my behavior.
“Yeah, they are small, crispy and delicious,” was approximately what she said to me. Amen. But she went on to regale me with a story of the large wings. This is what I remember from it:
Apparently, some patrons of Schottzie’s were complaining that the wings were too small and didn’t have enough meat. In response to these complaints, they actually ordered larger wings on purpose. When they made the switch, however, they got more complaints from customers upset about the change, so they switched back to the small wings.
And thank goodness they did. These small wings are a treasure that should be adapted by more local restaurants. If there are any big-wing apologists who pop up in the comments here, I’d love to hear your opinions.
Alright, I’m probably done writing about Schottzie’s on this blog. The only other variety of wings on their menu is BBQ, and I’m sure they are fine but I’m not ordering them.