The owners behind a popular Coney Island wing shop are set to open a second location in Bay Ridge on March 18.
According to Taha Alassari, the co-owner of Coney Island House of Wings, he and his brothers made the decision to extend their wing shop to Bay Ridge after low foot traffic began affecting the growth of their flagship location.
“There’s slow growth there. It’s just the neighborhood we’re in — the foot traffic is low. We’ve been covered with scaffolding literally since the day we’ve opened. No one has even seen our sign. We’ve been doing everything we can to grind it out,” he told Brooklyn Paper. “Once the opportunity came along in Bay Ridge to open, it’s kind of like everything we’d been looking for, as far as foot traffic, close to home and stuff like that. That’s why we jumped on that opportunity.”
The new site will open at 8812 Third Ave., alongside a host of other small businesses on the bustling Brooklyn street.
And, for the Alassaris, the neighborhood holds a significance to the family, as they were born at NYU Langone hospital, graduated from Fort Hamilton High School and are now raising their own families in the area.
“We’re from Bay Ridge, born, raised, educated, currently live, all in Bay Ridge,” the small business owner said. “So this just means a lot to us cause this has been where we’ve been for such a long time.”
With the restaurant’s expansion also comes other developments.
The eatery plans to revamp their menu of wings, burgers and BBQ to include more dishes and desserts — such as smash burgers and milkshakes.
The brothers opened up the brand’s first shop only 17 minutes away at 3100 Ocean Parkway in March 2021. Now, Alassari says another sibling will join the team to help co-run the original eatery as all of their roles are expanding.
“The Coney Island [shop] is surviving, it’s doing well. It’s just a lot of obstacles we have to overcome that we won’t have to deal with in Bay Ridge. That’s why we’re excited to open in Bay Ridge,” he said.
The bunch of brothers have their hands full as some of them also work in the education field. Taha serves as a special education teacher at Eagle Academy for Young Men in Brooklyn. While he works in numerous capacities, he says holding up their father’s legacy of owning a business remains the family’s motivation, as previously reported by Brooklyn Paper.
The group looks forward to bringing something new to the Bay Ridge food scene as it’s hard to find a place with wings outside of a dive bar, according to Alassari.
“There’s so many restaurants here but there’s not so many options,” he said. “We’re just bringing a whole new cuisine and menu to the neighborhood and it’s something that we’re very excited about.”
