The Kettle Black invites you to come visit us on:
“Here,” said Eddie Byrnes. He waved his hand at a bare
wall in a wholesale food warehouse in Brooklyn. “This is
where they usually keep the wings,” said Mr. Byrnes,
who
buys food for the Kettle Black Bar and Restaurant in Bay
Ridge. He squinted at a stack of boxes nearby that were full of chicken parts, all of them wrong. Breasts, thighs, backs no wings. “Not one box,” he
reported. Mr. Byrnes,
who describes himself, accurately, as resembling Santa
Claus, but with double earrings on the left side, spent a
good part of this week prowling the wholesale meat
markets in search of fresh chicken wings.
Five months
ago, when the football season began, he said, he was
paying $1.10 per pound ofwings. On Tuesday, in the season’s final week, he paid
$1.86. By Thursday, it seemed that they were nowhere
to be found at any price: Even at Jetro Cash & Carry, a
major food supplier to restaurants in the city, the
chicken wing wing of its warehouse on Hamilton
Avenue was bare. “If the Giants were still in the Super
Bowl, it would be much worse,” Mr. Byrnes said. “When
they were in it last year, we went through 35 cases.
That’s 1,400 pounds.” He remembered a not-so-distant
past when wings cost 29 cents a pound and were given
away free as the bar food most likely to parch the throat. Now, Kettle Black sells six wings for $5.95. The National Chicken Council reports that eight billion wings are consumed in the United States every year, but that chicken production is down 5 percent, because of high feed prices.
This year’s shortage was the subject of an investigative report on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central. The anchorman, Stephen Colbert, brought in an expert from the chicken industry, who tried to explain that it was a simple matter of the demand for wings during Super Bowl week exceeding the supply.
Mr. Colbert was not having any fancy-pants economic-law explanations, not at a moment of crisis.
“What other country,” he demanded, “can we invade to fix this?”
Assured by the expert that the United States produces the most poultry in the world and is actually the “Saudi Arabia of chicken,” Mr. Colbert thought there might be another way to meet the demand.
“Is there any chance we will have to release some wings from the strategic chicken wing reserve?” he asked.
Such a move would not come in time for Mr. Byrnes, who stood in the warehouse door on Thursday, plotting his next step.
To encourage people to beat the rush, the bar had posted a sign offering a 10 percent discount to customers who placed orders by last Sunday for their Super Bowl wings. But the discount period had expired. And calls to other wholesalers were unavailing.
“I was in the loading area here last week when a whole tractor-trailer of chicken came in,” Mr. Byrnes said. “In an entire truck of breasts, drumsticks, thighs, only five cases of wings! Who is running away with the wings?”
He was one of many restaurant people in Jetro, hoping that a glimpse of wings would be followed by a busy weekend of thirsty and hungry football fans. Near the hot sauce aisle, the owner of another bar in Bay Ridge flagged Mr. Byrnes down and they swapped shoptalk. The other man reported that he had plenty of wings. But they were all frozen, preflavored or breaded. Mr. Byrnes said he buys only fresh because the restaurant has its own recipes. After the competitor walked away, Mr. Byrnes smiled.
“Wait until the world finds out he’s doing frozen,” he said.
As Mr. Byrnes headed for the exit empty-handed, Jason Cortiella, the meat manager at Jetro, called to him. “Hey, man,” Mr. Cortiella said. “Did you get the wings I left for you?”
It turned out that Mr. Cortiella had stashed 10 cases of fresh wings on a high shelf, out of sight. A forklift lowered them to Mr. Byrnes, who wheeled them to the cashier on a cart, looking very pleased. The total came to $744 for 400 pounds of wings.
In the time it took him to glance at the ceiling, Mr. Byrnes had done the calculations. “That’s $1.86 a pound,” he said. “Same price as Tuesday.”
He paid. Behind him, a man from a restaurant in Prospect Heights eyed the cases stacked on Mr. Byrnes’s cart.
“Oooh,” he said. “Can I have one?” He laughed a little bit. But he wasn’t kidding. Neither was Mr. Byrnes, who kept rolling, trying to be inconspicuous, just another regular guy who happened to be wheeling gold ingots across a parking lot on their way to a deep-fat fryer.
Welcome to The Kettle Black.
We are happy to feature all your classic favorites with
a unique Kettle Black twist. Family owned and operated
since 2004. We are located in the heart of Bay Ridge,
Brooklyn on the corner of 87th Street and 3rd Avenue.
You can click here for Mapquest directions. Feel free to
navigate through our website and then call in your order.
We deliver 7 days a week from 5pm to 10pm.
The Bar is Open.
DJ’s Malibu and Chris—spinning every Thursday, Friday and
Saturday Nights. Buckets of 7oz. Rolling Rock and Bud
Bottles. Bucket Specials till 11pm Every Night!
Live Bands and Entertainment.
We feature the best in local, regional and national talent.
If your interested in booking your act or to find out who
will be performing at The Kettle Black please visit our
Live page for more info.
