Matthew McGinnis used to drive an hour to eat at Pluckers Wing Bar in Cypress. Starting Monday, he’ll only have to drive five minutes from his house to get a basket of boneless wings and waffle fries.
Pluckers is opening its College Station location on Monday. The restaurant is located at 990 University Drive E. It will be open Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to midnight and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Officials with the Austin-based sports bar chain announced they would open a location in Aggieland in March 2023.
“I expect it to be a huge success, and I’m happy for so many people here who didn’t drive an hour to just have it in their backyard,” McGinnis said.
Last week, Pluckers opened its doors for a soft opening event with two-hour lunch and dinner time slots. The simulated shifts allowed 250 customers to eat for free during meal times. McGinnis was the first through the doors Monday morning.
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“I’ve been waiting a long time for last Monday,” McGinnis said, laughing.
While chicken wings are the main dish at Pluckers, the menu also includes salads, burgers and sandwiches, as well as Texas State Fair-inspired desserts like deep-fried Oreos and deep-fried Twinkies. At Pluckers, kids under 10 can eat free on Tuesdays, there are trivia nights on Wednesdays, and free appetizers for teachers on Fridays. This is also the first Pluckers location to have a pickleball court.
Pluckers has also signed a sponsorship deal with the Texas A&M athletic team. The restaurant will be the official “Fifth Quarter” location for the A&M athletic team. Dale White, Pluckers’ entertainment secretary, said he expects the College Station restaurant to be popular with students.
“We’ve opened several locations right next to a university campus and we realized that the heart is with the students. And what better place to build next door than Texas A&M?” said White.
McGinnis first heard about Pluckers while at A&M through a friend he co-led with the Grace Bible Church youth group. His friend was from Austin and often went to Pluckers in high school. McGinnis accompanied him and a car full of students on a trip to Cypress, which used to be the closest Pluckers location to College Station. A good time with friends and good food got McGinnis hooked on Pluckers. Soon he was making more trips with other co-leaders and students from the youth group.
“We just became known as the guys who go to Pluckers and drive an hour to get food,” McGinnis said.
There was a group of six people who formed the core of Pluckers visitors, McGinnis said. When one couple was about to graduate and another was engaged in November 2021, the group saw that the Pluckers app offered a challenge to earn 500 points by visiting every location. They thought that would be a fun challenge. Then one of them had a crazy idea: What if they took a road trip together to eat at all the Pluckers locations at once?
The following week, the group went to the Cypress locations to come up with a plan. They found a four-day window in December that worked. At the time, Pluckers had 27 locations in Austin, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. All six were on board to make the project happen.
That night, McGinnis started an Instagram account called “Pluckathon.” McGinnis already knew the man who managed Pluckers’ social media account and messaged him about their planned venture. The next day, McGinnis received an email from Pluckers’ social media manager saying that his bosses wanted to help the group of college students. They would send Pluckathon members a $1,000 food gift card if they ate as many items on the menu as possible during the trip, posted a photo of each location, and left reviews.
“That was the moment we knew we had to do this,” McGinnis said. “It wasn’t just one of those things that gets brought up and never leaves the group chat.”
The group left College Station at 5 a.m. to reach the first location in Baton Rouge when it opened at 11 a.m. After a stop at the second location in Baton Rouge, the crew headed to the Dallas area to hit four more spots before the end of the first day. Day 2 included more stops in the D-FW area, one in Killeen and four in North Austin. On the third day, the team ventured to the San Antonio area and then returned to Austin for a visit to Pluckers’ corporate headquarters before heading to the rest of the Austin locations. The four-day trip concluded with stops at six locations in the Houston area. The final stop was the Cypress location, where the Pluckathon idea became a reality.
“It was just one of those crazy college experiences that you look back on and never forget or regret, but probably never do again,” McGinnis said.
During the visit to Pluckers’ headquarters, an employee told the group that a location in College Station was in the works. A year and a half later, McGinnis noticed he had received a message from Pluckers’ social media account. It was a video announcing that they were finally coming to Aggieland.
“It was one of the best days of my life,” McGinnis joked.
It was also the day McGinnis set a goal to be the first through the doors of the College Station Pluckers. On Sunday night, McGinnis drove by the restaurant, ready to camp there if needed. When he saw no one was there, he headed home, knowing he could wait until the next morning. Before going to bed, he sent his boss a message he described as poetic, explaining why he needed to get Monday morning off to accomplish the long-desired feat. Around 7:30 a.m. on Monday, his boss responded with a GIF of Katniss Everdeen from “The Hunger Games” and said, “May luck always be on your side.”
So McGinnis got in his car and arrived at the restaurant around 7:45 a.m. He was first in line. It took over an hour for the next person to join him. When the doors opened at 11 a.m., McGinnis was eating with his roommate and one of the Pluckathon members.
White said lines had formed around the building outside the soft opening counter this week and that every available food stamp had been given away.
Pluckers isn’t the only wing restaurant set to open soon in College Station, however. Anchor Bar, which created the Buffalo wing in Buffalo, New York in the 1960s, is slated to open a location in College Station this fall in the former Johnny Carino’s on Harvey Road.
Other businesses opening soon in College Station include: PopStroke at Century Square on August 22, Crust Pizza on University Drive, Voodoo Brewery at The Domain at Northgate this fall, and La Bodega Baja Taco Bar at Caprock Crossing this fall. Half Baked Goodness recently opened near Wellborn Road and Southwest Parkway.
White said the free meal last week provided training for Pluckers staff and also introduced Bryan-College Station residents to the restaurant.
“The response has been overwhelming,” White said. “It’s our first location in the city, but the response we’ve heard from everyone has been positive.”
