Chicken Bonz: Fried stuff done (mostly) right

In the Great American Desert, where I hail from, the name in chicken wings is Buffalo Wild Wings, and when we moved here, it was with sadness that the first time the wings craving hit, I learned that Eugene didn't HAVE a BWW. It's not a craving that hits often, but at the start of the summer, one of the crappy Mexican fast food places on Franklin went toes up, and not long after the "Coming Soon: Chicken Bonz" sign went up.

(I admit it: we made fun of the spelling. We still don't pronounce it the way they probably want us to.)

I looked them up on the Internets and learned that this was another location for a restaurant located in Springfield, and we went that night to the original metro-area location over in Other Town to try it out.

I like it. It's really quite a bit like BWW, for those of you have been there. They seem to be a franchise, so you can do this in college towns all over the country, but most importantly, now you can do it half a block from the law school side of campus. So, what makes that so great?

First of all, the french fries are always amazing and crisp. They're the long skinny fries, pretty far removed from a slice of potato, but you didn't come here for health food, right? The chicken is available on the bone or off it, but one of the few remnants of my foray into the land of vegetarians is that I don't do meat (especially chicken) on the bone. So I've only ever had the boneless wings, but it's always been fresh and juicy, and whoever works the fryer at the Eugene location has a slightly better way with the deep fat fryer than the guys in Springfield. You can have an assortment of sauces or rubs as flavoring; I'm partial to the medium wing sauce with copious ranch dressing from the condiment bar. G has taken to mixing up honey with Melinda's hot sauce from the bar, and using that as his dip for chicken.

They have a variety of sizes, from the Small Appetite 3 pieces, fries, and a drink, to the daunting 12.95 All-you-can-eat Special. A few weeks ago, we saw a couple of Ducks football players attempting to get their money's-worth from that deal: they were still eating when we left, on basket number 4 each. (Total? A shocking 20 wings, at least...)




Hours:

Monday		11:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Tuesday		11:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Wednesday		11:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Thursday		11:00 AM - 8:30 PM
Friday		11:00 AM - 8:30 PM
Saturday		11:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Sunday		12:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Location: 1535 Franklin Blvd, Eugene, or 1815 Pioneer Pkwy E, Springfield.