Fried Rice Collective is best known for its hit Korean restaurant Anju and fast-casual Chiko. But co-owner Scott Drewno hails from outside Syracuse in a town called Penn Yan\u2014\u201dhome to the world\u2019s largest buckwheat pancake\u201d\u2014and he\u2019s long wanted to pay homage to his upstate New York roots. Now, he\u2019s finally getting that chance with Upstate FTW, a sports bar serving beef on weck, chicken riggies, and, of course, buffalo wings. It opens tonight, just in time for football season.<\/p>\n
Upstate FTW is taking over the kitchen of Sports & Social on U Street, which has already been open for about two years. The sports bar, which has 19 locations around the country, will continue to handle front-of-house operations. \u201cThey were looking for a partner, and we were looking for a space and it\u2019s a big, beautiful kitchen,\u201d Drewno says.<\/p>\n
Drewno and his chef partners Danny Lee and Angel Barreto recently took a research trip to Buffalo to taste-test wings. In one day, the trio visited eight spots, ordering a dozen wings and a beer at each place. \u201cOne thing we noticed is that at no place did the wings come out before like 25 minutes,\u201d Drewno says. \u201cOne place that was under 20 minutes were the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n
Needless to say, you\u2019ll have to wait for Upstate FTW\u2019s wings, though things will move quicker when the place is busy and the kitchen can anticipate orders. Drewno says they brine the wings overnight, then chill and dry them in the walk-in fridge for two days before frying them. The Buffalo wings are dressed in a classic sauce of Frank\u2019s Red Hot and butter. \u201cThe viscosity and the consistency is important. So we have a little thing that we do, which I\u2019m not going to reveal to you,\u201d Drewno says. It\u2019s finished with a proprietary house seasoning.<\/p>\n
You can also get the wings with four other sauces, including another Buffalo specialty known as \u201cdouble BBQ.\u201d Drewno explains the wings are tossed in barbecue sauce, charred, then tossed again.<\/p>\n
Beef on weck is another main attraction. It\u2019s essentially a roast beef sandwich, but Upstate FTW is partnering with 2Fifty BBQ to smoke Creekstone Farms top round beef. It\u2019s served on a kimmelweck roll, a German roll with caraway seeds and salt\u00a0 that\u2019s custom-baked by DC\u2019s Pops Bakery. The sandwich is served with horseradish and jus for dipping.<\/p>\n
Other regional specialties include chicken riggies\u2014a baked rigatoni-and-chicken dish smothered in cheese\u2014and pork belly spiedies, with skewers of meat flavored with an Italian dressing-like marinade. The spiedies are served with salt potatoes\u2014baby Yukon golds boiled in an \u201cinordinate amount of salt\u201d then drowned in butter.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/UpstateFTW_JohnRorapaugh_ForLeadingDC-35.jpg\" "\\"UpstateFTW_JohnRorapaugh_ForLeadingDC-35")
Zweigle\u2019s hot dogs. Photograph by John Rorapaugh\/LeadingDC.<\/p>\n
The bar will also serve French bread pizzas and Zweigle\u2019s hot dogs from Rochester, which have a nice snap from the thick casing. Order red hots (pork and beef) or white hots (chicken, pork, and veal), then top them with a finely ground meat sauce, creamy-and-sharp Nance\u2019s mustard, and raw onion. (You can also add cheese sauce.)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/UpstateFTW_JohnRorapaugh_ForLeadingDC-91.jpg\" "\\"UpstateFTW_JohnRorapaugh_ForLeadingDC-91")
Upstate FTW\u2019s garbage plate. Photograph by John Rorapaugh\/LeadingDC.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll also find something called a \u201cgarbage plate,\u201d which originates from Rochester restaurant Nick Tahou. Half the plate is home fries and half is macaroni salad, and there are two cheeseburgers with no buns. It\u2019s all topped with meat sauce, mustard, and onions, then served with a hunk of French bread. \u201cI survived college on garbage plates,\u201d Drewno says. \u201cIt\u2019s either going to cure a hangover or stave off a hangover. It can work both ways from my personal experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
For dessert, find New York-style cheesecake or a skillet chocolate chip cookie.\n<\/p>\n
While the bar will serve New York food, it won\u2019t necessarily be a Buffalo Bills bar. Drewno says they don\u2019t want to compete with Bills bar Exiles down the street. Plus, his partner Lee is a local: \u201cDanny was like, \u2018We can do this, but it has to be a Commanders bar,\u201d Drewno says. \u201cSo of course, we\u2019re going to root for the home team.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Food Editor<\/p>\n
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.\u2019s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buffalo wings at Upstate FTW. Photograph by John Rorapaugh\/LeadingDC. Upstate FTW. 1314 U St. NW. Fried Rice Collective…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":201685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-201684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115150439346074517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}