Wesleyan Storytelling Project: WesWings Guy Edition
This week, listen to Mia Lobel ’97 in conversation with Ed Thorndike, Class of 1989. Ed Thorndike is one of Wesleyan’s well-known entrepreneurs–if you’ve ever been to Wes Wings or Red & Black Cafe, you’d know why. An English major at school, and a restauranteur by profession, Ed is not only the 4th generation in his family to attend Wesleyan, but he’s also the 4th Edward Thorndike to do so.
For the past 22 years, Wes Wings and Red & Black have comprised the core of a modern-day Wesleyan experience, and Wesleyan students continue to enjoy Ed’s close relationship with Wesleyan. Tune in for five minutes and listen to Ed discuss the most common Wes Wings misconceptions and how he got into this business in the first place.
Deal’s Off -You’re Stuck with Us
The deal to sell WesWings has fallen through. Apparently, the vegan buyers feel they can feed more Wesleyan students in Brooklyn. Plus it turns out that it costs a lot more than we thought to retire early even with the life expectancy for someone who’s been eating at WesWings for over 20 years.
We do appreciate all the well wishes we received today. (really? soybean cookie dough didn’t give it away) We can now look forward to many years in the basement of 156 High St., frying wings and livin’ the dream.
Karen & Ed
Why We’re Selling WesWings
By now most have you have heard the rumor that WesWings was being sold. It’s hard to keep a secret in the age of Facebook, twitter and Karen. It has not been an easy decision for us. For over 20 years, we have enjoyed meeting the thousands of students and frying their food. We both realized that it was time to move on. Working nights can be tiring and the winter break is too long.
The new owners have promised to keep the name and the decor, but as vegans, plan to make several changes to the menu. They tell us that their locally sourced soybean cookie dough is quite good. (so at least you can still get your cookie dough fix)
As for us, fortunately the money we’ve sold WesWings for combined with what we’ve charged for mozzarella sticks over the years, will allow us to retire quite comfortably.
We wish everyone the best.
-Karen & Ed
Thank You!
We’re not sure how everyone else feels, but at WesWings and the Red & Black Cafe, we’re getting a little tired of this whole extreme weather global climate change thing. We are very proud of our staff at WesWings and the fact that we remained open throughout the entire event.
It was more difficult for the cafe to keep open due to the fact that we share the space with Broad St Books and cannot operate if they are unable provide staff. (besides selling books is not that critical during a blizzard)
WesWings’ staff was incredible throughout. On Friday, most of our full-time and student staff reported for dinner. After dinner, our chef Bill Nardi, walked to the Middletown Inn (his weekend accommodations) in blizzard conditions as did many of our other employees. 
By Saturday morning as we all awoke to upwards of three feet of snow, Bill returned to WesWings to prepare for the day. The grounds crew from Stonehenge cleared a path both in the parking lot and through the side yard to allow students to get to our front door. With a pared down menu, we served between 500-600 students brunch. It was the busiest brunch in the history of WesWings. Over two hundred breakfast pails alone.
Dinner went down as the busiest as well with over 700 students fed during the three-hour period. That’s an average of one customer every fifteen seconds, for three hours MADE TO ORDER. The line stretched to the parking lot the entire night. While we may have made a few mistakes, everyone was patient and it was never anything so bad that a little cookie dough couldn’t fix.
By Sunday, Karen and Ed were both able to travel to Middletown to help. The numbers were similar to Saturday. Sunday brunch become the new number one, and dinner a close second to Saturday.
The line still stretched out the door.
The crowds inside were pretty intense as well.
While we owe so many of our employees a great deal of thanks, it was the Saturday crew that held it all together in our absence.
- Bill Nardi, Chef/Hold the place together chief
- Job Vasquez, sous chef/place falls apart without guy
- Rick Kmietek, cook/fastest sandwich maker ever!
- Michael Mitchell, cook/hardcore cook
- Ralph Morton, dishwasher/lifesaver
- Serena Berry, student worker/cashier extraordinaire
- Vivian Deng, student worker/coordinator powerhouse
- Emmie Finckel, student worker/marathon cashier
- Jackie Freed, student worker/brunch cashier queen
- Liza Goodstein, student worker/coordinator superstar
- George Gore, student worker/chicken parm master
- Elizabeth Litvitskiy, student worker/coordinating wonder
- Reid Meador, Student worker/coordinator stalwart
- Alex Papadogiannis, student worker/dominator of the fryolator
- Tong Satayopas, student worker/super helper
- Michaela Tolman, student worker/lost without her
Finally, members of the University deserve everyone’s gratitude. For us, specifically,
- Nate Peters, Associate Vice President for Finance
- Joyce Topshe, Associate Vice President for Facilities (personally shovelled out the Red & Black Cafe)
- Everyone at Stonehenge
- Tennessee and Rebecca, two Red & Black customers who help shovel the front steps so we could open the building
We hope we didn’t miss anyone and if we did, please send us a comment and we’ll update accordingly.
Karen & Ed
Like It Never Happened
Both Red & Black Cafe and Wes Wings are back to our regular schedules.
Could Be Worse. Could Be Raining.
Wes Wings and Red & Black Cafe are both OPEN!!!
Update: The Cafe and bookstore will be open 11am-4pm Monday
WesWings open regular hours.
It’s been a difficult few days and it’s not over yet. We will follow up with a long list of thank you’s to so many people.
Both locations have specials and we will post when we can.
Blizzard of the Century Schedule
Update: The Red & Black Cafe and bookstore will be closed today Sunday. We hope to re-open on Monday.
Wes Wings will continue to be open regular hours. 11-2 Brunch 5-8 Dinner
We will update the schedule including any closings as the clean up progresses.
Join Mug Club for the Spring Semester for only 20 points
Were you away last fall or afraid to commit for a whole school year? We’ve restocked our supply of Mugs for the spring semester. A great way to save both money and the environment. The deal is simple. Purchase a mug once and never pay for soda or iced coffee the rest of the school year. The mugs are good at both locations with a limit of one fill up per visit.
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