We were lucky to catch up with Cole Forrest recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cole, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

New Wing Order is actually the product of two ideas. Initially, I started it as a competition cooking team as a way to stay connected with friends, while also cooking the foods we love – hot wings in particular. We would compete in different cities and have a team that hailed from all over the U.S. – including my long time friend, Jesse McDonald.

As we were winning trophies on the competition circuit, Jesse was jumping head first into the culinary scene in Nashville, Tennessee. One of his last stops was managing a startup food truck and helping it grow to a top 10 mobile eatery in the city. This experience made him want to start his own food truck in Memphis using personally developed recipes and dishes. Jesse asked if I would partner with him and his brother, Jonah, to help get it off the ground.

We opened the New Wing Order food truck in September of 2018. The truck and catering company soon became one of the most popular mobile eateries in the city and, in 2020, was voted Best Food Truck in Memphis. In June 0f 2022, we opened our first brick and mortar restaurant on world-famous Beale Street.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Memphis is widely known as a barbecue town, but hot wings aren’t far behind in terms of popularity. You would be hard pressed to go past a couple blocks of commercial businesses and not see a restaurant featuring hot wings. Most establishments focus on the same flavors: hot, extra hot, seasoned, lemon pepper, honey gold, and a couple others. While we do offer those core flavors, we wanted to offer flavors customers could not find anywhere else, such as Pineapple Habanero, Cajun Honey Hot, Midtown Masala, Korean Kick, and more. There are 25+ wing flavors, along with monthly specials like Mango Jalapeno and Lemon Rosemary.

In addition to the wings, we wanted to create a menu that was inclusive of all guests with vegetarian and vegan options. The vegan-friendly Avocado Taco has become one of our most popular menu items. Other unique items include Hot Wing Nachos, the Buffalo Chicken Gyro, Jalapeno Popper Cheese Dip, and more. We’re always experimenting with new specials and love to hear what customers have to say. As much as we may like a dish, we let the customers have the final say on whether it becomes a permanent menu item.

I feel like the willingness to constantly experiment, finetune, and be receptive to feedback is what’s helped push our products to the next level. We never have an approach of “We know what’s best” and being able to continually adapt has helped us continually improve. We’ve been able to rack up 17 awards since we began this a few years ago, and I don’t think that would have been possible if we weren’t always trying to get better.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

The food truck industry can be highly seasonal, taking dips during the extreme cold or extreme heat periods of the year. We opened our business in the fall of 2018 and had a couple months of ideal weather and then were forced to deal with a slow period when we hadn’t yet built up a sizable customer base or partnerships with hosting venues. I was cold calling different locations every day to book us and, while we did an OK job of filling up the schedule, the vast majority of these services were not profitable. We had to keep trying new venues and adapt the menu, inventory, and staffing as we went – there was a ton of trial and error. As we got into January of that winter, our cash reserves were dwindling and we were about to start paying staff out of pocket.

Our saving grace was the love of football and hot wings. We decided to post up in my business partner’s tightly knit neighborhood and heavily promote catering spreads in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. By the time that Sunday rolled around, we had so many pre-orders that we had to bring in additional equipment to handle the demand. We had our most profitable service to that point, and the stir it caused in the neighborhood let us know this would be something we could do on a more ongoing basis.

That service saved us that month and things started turning around from that point on. We found more consistently profitable venues, our regular customer base grew, and the demand for the truck and catering began to grow to the point where we became booked out for months in advance. But none of that would have been possible had we not kept trying to innovate even when things were at their darkest.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Referrals, both person-to-person and via social media have been huge for us. If you are able to provide a superior product and service to a customer, then your business will come to mind when a friend is looking for something in that industry. For this reason, we try to be very attentive to customers and help them in any way we can. With so many flavors on our menu, it can be daunting for a first time customer. We like to talk to them and get an idea of what is their heat level like, do they like sauced or seasoned wings, etc. If we can get that first order right, they’ll be more likely to come back and/or refer us to others. If we get that first order wrong, then it’s likely their last order with us.

Even after we opened our brick and mortar restaurant, having a food truck/mobile operation is a great way to build a customer base. We’re able to touch different neighborhoods and build customer bases with people who would not otherwise visit us. Even if we didn’t have the food truck, we are still active in cooking competitions and events, where we can get our products in front of new prospects.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://newwingorder.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newwingorder/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewWingOrder
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/newwingorder
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/new-wing-order-memphis

Image Credits
The first image of the two owners was taken by Ray Padilla courtesy of the Commercial Appeal