The Boston Beanery

Downtown Morgantown, WV

321 High Street

Morgantown, WV, 26505

Phone (304) 292-0165

http://www.bostonbeanery.com/

The Boston Beanery is a pretty famous local restaurant in and around Morgantown, WV.  In some ways, the Beanery is synonymous with Morgantown and WVU.  People talk about the Beanery and love to grab food and drinks there while they’re in town.   The High Street location in this review is the original location that has spawned a pretty successful regional chain of six locations in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Virginia.   

The Boston Beanery is modeled in tribute of the pubs of old town Boston.  This being the original location and at the mercy of a constant barrage of college kids, signs of wear are showing all around.  The place feels small, cramped, and frankly a little dingy.  But…also frankly…all that contributes to a certain irresistible charm.

I’ve enjoyed each of my visits and I’ve almost always been happy with my meals.  The menu is vast and sure to please anyone.   But enough about the place…what about the wings, you may ask.  Well….you saw the “almost always” a few  sentences ago, right?  The wings I had on this night were not up to par with the rest of the Beaneries quality menu…and more importantly…they were no where close to what a good wing should be!  What went wrong?

I can only guess.  Normally, I’m worried that my poor pictures won’t do justice to a great wing.  In this case…the opposite is true.  I’m afraid the pictures seem to give credit where credit is not due. 

Look at ‘em.  They look large.  They look crispy.  The look perfectly coated.  To make matters worse…they SMELLED great and they looked crispy in person with my eyes and mouth hovering just a few inches above.   So you see…the let down is getting big.  Expecting one thing…and getting…pretty much the opposite.

The best way I can describe the wings:   go to the grocery store.  Go to the frozen food aisle.  Pick up a bag of frozen Tyson wings.  Not the fresh-then-frozen kind.  The kind that are already flavored with buffalo flavor.  Take ‘em home.  And microwave them. Yeah. That’s right.  Don’t fry ‘em.  Don’t even bake ‘em.  Microwave ‘em.

They weren’t crispy.  The hot sauce seemed more like a mildish medium.  They were chewy and the meat pulled hard from the bone. 

10 wings for $8.49 would be a pretty good value…somewhere else.  Try the Boston Style Chili.  And try the Southwest Chicken Wrap.  It’s huge and smothered in cheese.  Try any of the soups, sandwiches, wraps, pizzas, pastas, salads or appetizers.  Try the wings too if ya want.  But don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

Bottom line?   As they say…looks can  be deceiving.  I cannot recommend the wings from The Boston Beanery.  These things were such a disappointment.  Sometimes there’s an obvious reason…it’s wing night or the place is slammed…in both cases the kitchen gets rushed and produces a low quality product.  Maybe there’s a not so obvious answer…a new cook…someone’s dog ate the recipe.  I don’t know.   What I do know is that I was let down. Big time.