King of Wings Opens on Tuesdays to Showcase Other Local Food Businesses

Eddie Renshaw knows what it's like to start a food business from scratch. He and his partner, Evan Pierce, are childhood best friends from St. Louis who left careers in sales and engineering, respectively, to launch King of Wings as a food truck seven years ago. Inspired by a recipe from Pierce's uncle, the two poured their time and money into the business, which opened a brick-and-mortar eatery and taproom at 7741 West 44th Avenue in Wheat Ridge in June 2020 — and earned a place on our list of the ten best wings in Denver.

Despite having no professional cooking experience and then opening in the middle of pandemic restrictions, Renshaw and Pierce have persevered, building a loyal following of fans. "If there's a hurdle to overcome, at this point, anything that comes our way, we're ready to beat it," Renshaw says.

Now he's giving up his one day off a week to help other food entrepreneurs grow. "Since Tuesday has basically been our closed day, we were like, 'How can we combine forces with other smaller food businesses or food trucks or food pop-ups and try and share our following with their following and have their following come out and check out our restaurant?'" Renshaw explains.
The first Tuesday event, on December 7, featured Mikey's Meats, a barbecue pop-up run by Michael Schinn, who met Renshaw in the early days of the King of Wings food truck, when it served at Epic Brewing. "He used to come up all the time.... We also both play hockey, and it was kind of like, 'Did we just become best friends?'" Renshaw recalls. Schinn is an engineer by trade, and has applied that precision to his passion for barbecue.

The King of Wings pop-up was his first on that scale, and a line of over fifty people quickly grew, waiting to get a taste of his menu that included massive beef ribs, pork ribs, brisket and pork belly burnt ends. Schinn is hoping to continue to grow his side hustle into a full-time gig as he pursues opening his own brick-and-mortar, Renshaw says.

On December 14, a King of Wings employee will run his own pop-up, cooking green chile. "He just makes some of the best green chile I've ever had," Renshaw notes, adding that the menu will include items like quesadillas and green chile cheese nachos.

The schedule for other Tuesdays includes popular food trucks like Yuan Wonton and Pho King Rapidos as well as Moontime Crepes, which runs a food trailer and has a stall at Edgewater Public Market. Renshaw and Pierce also plan to test out some of their other potential concepts, like smashburgers, on Tuesdays.

"A lot of our regulars and customers have been hearing a lot about what we've been talking about, so it just gets them more excited to come check out different food at our spot on Tuesdays," Renshaw concludes.

For details on upcoming Tuesday pop-ups, follow King of Wings on Instagram.