Downtown Kirkwood is a neighborhood best known for having more restaurants than parking spaces. In a city where everyone drives, this can be a bit problematic but on a Saturday afternoon near Billy G’s Kirkwood it didn’t prove to be too much of an issue.

Billy G’s is “the newest addition to The Gianino Family of Restaurants”. This family includes several Joey B’s, a Frankie G’s, a similar and presumably different place called Frankie Gianino’s and a few other places. Have I ever been to any of them before? Maybe, but if so I don’t remember.

The menu here features upscale pub-grub with some Italian stuff like pizza and pasta too. The atmosphere seems pretty good inside at the bar. That’s where I ate, watching some March Madness games this weekend. The highlight of the place, however, seems to be an incredible patio area which is open and looks great.

There’s also a reasonable beer selection featuring a good amount of local options on tap. I’m beginning to come to the opinion that every bar in St. Louis should have Civil Life Brown Ale on tap at all times, and Billy G’s met this criteria during my visit.

As far as the wings go, they’ve got some options for “A full pound of wings served your way!” and they all cost $10.49:

• Backyard: BBQ-dry rubbed and charred on the grill with a side of BBQ sauce and buttermilk ranch.
• Trashed: Fried, tossed in wing sauce, then refried until extra crispy. Served with wing sauce and buttermilk ranch.
• Classic – Fried and tossed in our wing sauce with a side of buttermilk ranch.

I went for the Trashed option because I like things crispy. I don’t like having to dip my wings in sauce myself, but I knew what I was getting into.

If I could talk to the people responsible for plating wings served with sauces for dipping, this is what I would tell them: use as wide-rimmed of a container as you can reasonably find.

Narrow serving containers that only allow you to dip an end of the wing into the sauce are not good. They force you to pour the sauce onto each wing individually to get reasonable sauce coverage and this just isn’t a good time.

Fortunately, these wings were crispy as advertised. There was a bit of spice remaining from the initial coating of wing-sauce before the refry and that gave the wings a very tasty flavor on their own.

The sauce itself had a resemblance to a more Franks-y version of Syberg’s sauce. It is better than Syberg’s sauce because it was a bit spicier and a bit less thick and overwhelming.

This was my first trip to Billy G’s so I can’t say how the rest of the menu is, but I can say that their trashed wings are pretty good. Despite all my complaining about sauce dipping, if I were going to get the wings here again, I’d get them trashed. I think the sauce might still be a little overwhelming in the classic serving.