The Village Bar is some kind of St. Louis institution, or at the very least it’s some kind of Becker family institution. According to their .biz website, The Village Bar opened in 1948 and has had a kitchen since the 1970’s.

They are known for their burgers, and indeed their burgers are pretty good. As any bar that serves food should, they also fry things very well. Fries (waffle or crinkle cut), mushrooms and onion rings are all good.

The other items that they note on their .biz website’s homepage are “homemade chili and fresh cooked jumbo wings.” Jumbo wings? NOOOOO!

But when you’re out eating lunch with a group of uncles and cousins on January 30th, and you’re looking to get another review in before the end of the month, jumbo wings will have to do. (Trying to push past 1,000 monthly views for the 2nd time in a row/ever here)

I’m certain that I’ve eaten these wings five or more times in my life, but I probably haven’t had any since high school and I didn’t remember anything about them. The menu description is encouraging except for the “J” word and leads me to ask questions about other bars’ wings:

Our wings are jumbo and not precooked

Are other bars’ wings just reheated in a microwave? I don’t know, but now I will worry. On their .biz website, it also says “Please allow 20 minutes”, but I can’t find this on the picture I took of the menu. You can order a half pound for $5.50 or a full pound for $9. They offer 2 (or maybe 3?) wing flavors: “Buffalo Style with Ranch” and “Sweet Chili & Lime, Honey Bourbon”. I don’t know if that last one is one flavor or two, but strangely they sound pretty good either way.

But wait, there are more options! You can get your wings “trashed” (Trashed; adj. “wings that are grilled after they are fried, sometimes tossed in sauce again, sometimes not”) for 75¢, or get all drummies for $1.00. If that wasn’t enough, THEY ALSO SERVE FRIED BUTTERFLY SHRIMP IN HOT WING SAUCE.

I got a pound of the Buffalo Style with Ranch wings, though thankfully the ranch is separate from, and not mixed in with the buffalo sauce, like some barbarian Doritos® flavor.. You also have the option to have blue cheese instead of Ranch.

So does the Village Bar have what it takes to make me love Jumbo wings? I love everything else I’ve had from their kitchen. The answer, unfortunately, is no. But the wings were better than I expected, and might even be considered very good for their size.

The wings come served in a wonderful red basket with wax paper, and are sauced to an almost precarious degree. Even after I was done with my wings, there was probably a 1/4” of sauce collected at the bottom of my wax paper.

The crispiness of the wings, sadly, was a victim of this excessive sauciness. There was no crispiness to be found, even in the wings that weren’t drowning themselves in the sauce.

The sauce itself is a classic Buffalo, and I’d say it had the proper balance in the spice/butter department. An hour after eating them, I can still taste the sauce a bit but by no means was I uncomfortable from the spice level while eating them.

The chicken, while there was too much of it, was actually pretty good. I don’t know if “not precooked” means “not frozen” (I have my doubts), but I would say that the chicken quality here was higher than on your average jumbo wing.

I’m painting kind of a negative picture here, but really these wings were perfectly acceptable. If jumbo wings are your thing, you’ll probably think these are great. It is the personal recommendation of this wing reviewer, however, that you should get a burger, some onion rings, and the Anhaeuser Busch product of your choice. That is a guaranteed recipe for success.