Fast Food Restaurants That Discontinued Their Chicken Wings

Chicken wings will always have a place in fast food, but not every fast food chain will serve them. While restaurants like Wingstop and Buffalo Wild Wings are wholly committed to sauced and seasoned wings, plenty of popular fast food spots have introduced chicken wings to their menus only to remove them shortly afterward.

Beyond just testing out a new food item, there are at least a couple noteworthy reasons that wings in particular can be temporary at restaurants that don't specialize in the dish. For instance, wing prices have become relatively unstable, fluctuating significantly between just 2019 and 2023. Some chains, then, may add wings to their menu while the price of wings is low and ultimately remove them once that price increases. Furthermore, wings are practically the official snack of football — and especially the Super Bowl — so some chains promote new wings or new wing flavors specifically to coincide with the NFL season. Of course, oftentimes wings come and go at a restaurant without any clear explanation and may likely be the victim of customers simply not ordering enough of them. With that in mind, the following nine popular chains all used to offer chicken wings before opting to discontinue their wings for good.

Back in 1990, McDonald's started selling fried chicken wings under the considerably more entertaining moniker Mighty Wings. For what it's worth, Mighty Wings were closer in style to un-sauced fried chicken but separated into flats and drums like a typical chicken wing spot would do. While McDonald's only ever cycled the Mighty Wings on and off of its menu as a limited-time promotion, those promotions lasted regularly through 2003, at which point McDonald's got rid of its Mighty Wings for the first time.

That decision didn't mark the end of Mighty Wings, however. The chain eventually brought them back temporarily in 2013 and then again on a super limited basis in 2016 — the latter promotion only applying to just under 300 McDonald's restaurants in and around the Atlanta area. That regional promotion in 2016 was the last time that Mighty Wings appeared on the McDonald's menu. Unsurprisingly, given both the wings' longevity and the general popularity of McDonald's, there's been a fair amount of talk online mourning the Mighty Wings. As recently as July 2024, for example, Mighty Wings were the subject of a Reddit thread requesting a copycat recipe. Despite some lingering interest, Mighty Wings remain a discontinued relic of the McDonald's menu's past.

On one hand, chicken wings are an unconventional fit for the Taco Bell menu, which is largely built on idiosyncratic interpretations of Mexican-American staples. On the other hand, Taco Bell is nothing if not creative, so anything unexpected comfortably fits within the chain's philosophy. Nevertheless, however appropriate or inappropriate they may be, wings have come and gone at Taco Bell with no sign of returning.

Taco Bell debuted its chicken wings nationwide in 2022 as a limited-time promotion. The Taco Bell style of wing was unsauced like the McDonald's Mighty Wings but coated in a cheese-flavored seasoning blend and accompanied by a side serving of spicy ranch. In early 2023, Taco Bell brought wings back to its menu, again for only a limited time. They have yet to make a comeback. In fact, Taco Bell opted to test chicken nuggets in late 2023 and spotlight them in its 2024 Live Más Live presentation, which outlined upcoming promotions for the year. In all likelihood, chicken wings have been phased out in favor of chicken nuggets, allowing Taco Bell to offer a promotional, bite-sized, dippable chicken item in a different form.

McDonald's and Taco Bell are hardly the first chains an unsuspecting consumer would expect to serve chicken wings. If that same consumer had to list which major fast food restaurants seemed most likely to serve chicken wings, it's entirely possible KFC would end up first on that list. So, while it's unsurprising that KFC has offered wings on its menu, the fact that they're discontinued may well come as more of a surprise than the same thing happening at virtually any other chain.

Originally, KFC sold honey BBQ wings on a promotional basis in the late '90s. Fans of those original KFC wings are numerous enough that a Facebook page dedicated itself to their return. A separate online petition for the permanent return on KFC's chicken wings has more than 7,400 signatures. The honey BBQ wings' most recent stint on the KFC menu kicked off in 2019, when they were one of three wing flavors the chain intended to maintain permanently. Then, in February 2023, KFC dropped wings from its menu, purportedly as part of an initiative to streamline its offerings. Wings technically returned in September 2023, albeit solely in a Hot & Spicy flavor and just for a limited time. For what it's worth, the Mashed review of KFC's Hot & Spicy wings was relatively negative, and the chain has yet to bring back wings in any form. Even though fried chicken is its metaphorical bread and butter, KFC seems to have discontinued its chicken wings for good.

Technically, boneless chicken wings aren't actually wings, considering they're often made with white meat rather than meat from an actual chicken wing. Even if they're wings in name only, that name still counts for something, referring to chicken of a certain size and sauced or seasoned in a particular manner. In 2014, Sonic Drive-In added boneless wings to its menu — explicitly composed of white meat chicken — available in Buffalo, Asian sweet chili, and barbecue flavors. The drive-in chain then reprised its boneless wing promotion in 2017, this time offering sweet sesame and fire-roasted chipotle flavors. That was the last time Sonic sold its white-meat chicken wings.

While the company offered no explicit reason for the promotion's cancellation, in a Reddit thread about Sonic discontinuing its wings, a couple of users claimed first-hand knowledge of the rationale behind the change. The thread's top comment, for example, suggests that the boneless wings' six-minute cook time exceeds a company initiative to ensure everything on the menu takes four minutes or less to prepare. Another commenter alleged that the boneless wings were replaced by popcorn chicken, which is, notably, still on the Sonic menu.

Chicken wings, of course, are available at El Pollo Loco to this day, though they are grilled and unseparated, entirely unlike the bite-size, sauced style typical of a wing spot. El Pollo Loco did, in fact, offer its own unique take on a classic chicken wing starting in late 2019 and lasting through the start of 2020. While the Mexican-American chain still served its wings whole and unseparated, these particular wings were tossed in sauce and served with fries just like the wings at Wingstop and similar restaurants. Customers could choose between sweet tapatio and garlic and cotija flavors.

That wing promotion was ultimately a one-off, and sauced wings have remained unavailable at El Pollo Loco since 2020. For what it's worth, Reddit user BlankVerse shared a detailed write-up of their experience with the promotion soon after it kicked off. While they enjoyed both flavors and thought each deserved a place on the chain's permanent menu, they also thought that El Pollo Loco's wings were a worse value than the wings at competing chains based on their size. Whether it was that their value kept customers away, that they were too difficult to prepare in a timely fashion, or some other combination of factors, El Pollo Loco opted not to bring its sauced wings back after that initial trial run.

In October 2021, Arby's announced a limited time boneless wing promotion. Customers could choose between classic Buffalo or hot honey flavors, available in a six-piece quantities and accompanied by crinkle fries for $5. Arby's reprised this same deal in August 2023, retaining both flavors and the $5 combo deal. While the wings were also available in larger quantities, the six-wing combo remained the promotion's focus. That was the last time wings were available at Arby's.

During Arby's first run of the wings, one Reddit user claimed that the chain merely sauced its existing chicken nuggets and called them wings. Press for the wings even highlighted the fact that they were made with white-meat chicken and that Buffalo sauce was used on some existing menu items. It's likely, then, that at least the Buffalo flavor was something Arby's could prepare with components that already existed in its kitchen. As simple as they may have been to produce, demand from customers was likely not sufficient enough for the chain to bring them back more than once.

While Yoshinoya restaurants in Japan revolve around gyudon beef bowls accompanied by a wide variety of Japanese comfort food staples, the menu at Yoshinoya in America incorporates some common Japanese dishes like karaage and udon while simultaneously competing with health-focused teriyaki chicken bowl restaurants. With this sort of lack of focus in mind, it's perhaps unsurprising that Yoshinoya once tried out chicken wings on its menu before ultimately deciding to discontinue them for good.

Initially, American Yoshinoya locations served what it called sesame wings, made with only flats and tossed in a light sesame-flavored sauce. Then, in 2014, the chain replaced those sesame wings with so-called Asian BBQ wings, introducing drums to the mix and opting instead for a sweeter, goopier sauce. In the wake of both wing promotions, customers appear to be more nostalgic for the sesame wings than the Asian BBQ wings. Neither style of wing, however, is on the Yoshinoya menu today. Instead, the menu revolves almost entirely around customizable noodle or rice bowls — hardly a suitable venue for chicken wings.

Buffalo wings are increasingly becoming to pizza like what fries are to a burger. Most major pizza chains like Domino's and Little Caesars now offer wings, so when MOD Pizza decided to do the same, it was merely keeping up with its competition. That said, MOD Pizza differs in format from delivery-focused pizza spots, centering instead on customizable personal pies. Perhaps because that format wasn't quite as well-suited to preparing hot entrees other than pizzas, the MOD Pizza chain offered wings only for a limited time before they were discontinued.

For what it's worth, wings never even made it on the menu at every MOD Pizza location. Rather, the company tested out a baked chicken wing recipe first in its hometown of Seattle, then at 28 locations in and around Salt Lake City and Dallas in 2023. Customers could choose from sauceless, Buffalo, BBQ hot honey, sriracha ranch, and parmesan garlic rosemary options, accompanied by any of seven dipping sauces. Since customization is the name of the game at MOD Pizza, it was a priority that its wings were plenty customizable just like its pizzas. One factor possibly contributing to the wings' brief window of availability was — at least based on a small online sample size — a pretty lukewarm reception. In a Reddit thread dedicated to how unappealing one particular order of wings looked, a commenter claiming to know a MOD Pizza manager and another claiming to be a MOD Pizza manager both openly disparaged the wings' quality.

When a social media thread led to predominately American Costco shoppers feeling jealous of the store's Canadian food courts, the dish that elicited the most envy was the warehouse chain's poutine. At that time, the Canadian Costco food court's menu also included chicken wings, available in quantities of 10 or 30 pieces, which also were not offered at U.S. Costco stores. The Costco poutine made a splash in early 2022, but some customers reported losing chicken wings at their local Canadian Costco food courts years prior.

According to users in a Reddit thread about Costco Canada discontinuing its wings, a number of stores got rid of chicken wings near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, Costco Canada phased out its chicken wings at a deliberate pace. Another Reddit user reported losing chicken wings at their local store as recently as 2023. Costco Canada eventually brought wings back in May 2024, but not at the food court. Instead, shoppers can pick up warm wings in the rotisserie chicken area or purchase raw Kirkland Signature wings to prepare at home. The Costco Canada food courts remain wingless.