My first two reviews are “Pandemic Pivot” restaurants. Someone was doing one thing, then COVID-19 happened, and they had to do something else. Maybe people loved that something else and it bloomed into its own thing. Maybe people didn’t love it so much and it fizzled out.

These have been (AND REMAIN) tough times for those in the restaurant industry, and I don’t envy any of the conditions that you’re facing.

But for now we’re talking about a pivot that got upgraded to its own place. Pizza Champ is a restaurant by Elmwood. I’ve never been to Elmwood, so I can’t tell you anything about it, but you can read about the Pizza Champ concept in this Feast article from December.

Pizza Champ proper (2657 Lyle Ave, Maplewood) has only been open a couple weeks but I was pretty excited to give it a try. The pizzas looked great and they were talking up their chicken wings as well.

The pickup experience couldn’t have been better. I ordered for pickup at 5:30. I arrived at the drive-thru window at 5:30. They handed me my wings (and pizza and salad) at 5:30. Never waited for anything, never got out of my car.

Pizza Champ currently offers 3 wing flavors: lemon-pepper, mild and hot. I went with hot, because I assumed “how hot could it be.”

Seems like these hot wings are fried (could be baked, what am I a wing expert?), which puts them at a disadvantage in the carry-out game. However, these wings were still hot and had a great texture after my 20 minute ride home. A little crispness was lost, but you know what you’re getting into when you take your wings on a ride in a plastic box.

The smell of these HOT (that’s how their menu styles it) wings was not overwhelmingly spicy. It smelled like a pretty standard buffalo Wing with maybe a slight tinge of St. Louis “is this a Syberg’s style- sauce” of mustard?

I took a bite, and I was pleasantly knocked on my ass by some serious heat AND flavor. These bad boys pack a punch! Snooping their Instagram I’ve learned a bit more about the sauce. They say it’s a secret (🤫) but at one of the secret ingredients is fermented Fresno chilis.

These aren’t like Blazin’ hot, but they do not mess around. They were too hot for me, but I ate all 6 of them anyway, because they were very tasty. They were serve with fantastic dill ranch which complimented the wing flavors very well, and helped make the heat more tolerable.

We also got a pepperoni pizza and the pictures on that one speak for themselves. Tons of pepperonis, very large slices, a great pie.

The star of the show, if I’m being honest is the least photographed menu item of the three we ordered: The Grilled Broccoli Caesar Salad. This thing was phenomenal. No lettuce, all grilled broccoli, with a great dressing, fried shallots, bread crumbs and dill.

Next time, I’ll scale back my wings to Mild & I’d also like to try the lemon pepper, but whatever your sauce preference, these wings were a worthy part of a great order. Things were not cheap (6 wings $12, salad $12, pizza $24) but we had half a pizza left over and everything was fantastic. I’ll be back!