Formerly a “ghost restaurant”, chicken wings and garlic breadstick shop, Inferno Wings opened their doors May 1st.

“It’s the best buffalo wings you’ve had,” said Derek Baziotis, owner and co-founder of Inferno Wings.

With their menu offering chicken tenders, bone-in and boneless wings including 11 sauce options, they also have their specialty side of garlic breadsticks.

“The spicy barbeque wings were the perfect mix of sweet and spicy,” said EWU student Kennedy Keller.

The store opened on First Street in Cheney after running through Bene’s as a temporary “ghost kitchen”. A ghost restaurant does not have a location or dine in options, but sells products online and through deliveries.

That’s exactly what Derek Baziotis and Myrinn Kern did when their restaurant, Bene’s, was shut down during the pandemic. Baziotis is the owner of Bene’s restaurant, and had the idea behind Eagle Bites.

“I found some software that would allow us to do delivery,” Baziotis said. “So we got all the local restaurants in on it.”

In 2017, Baziotis opened Eagle Bites to the public. It is an online system allowing students to have food delivery options, hiring drivers to pick up food orders from various local restaurants such as Zip’s and Barrelhouse.

When Bene’s restaurant was shut down, owner Baziotis leaned on Eagle Bites, as more local restaurants added to the app’s services. One of his employees, Myrinn Kern wanted to figure out a way to make money during the pandemic. While some Bene’s employees became drivers for Eagle Bites, Kern and Baziotis teamed up.

They decided to start their own food business and run it through the kitchen at Bene’s.

“We really didn’t do much advertising on it,” Baziotis said. “It really was a project for Myrinn to learn about food costing and how to peak his interest in business.”

Kern was a third year student at EWU when he came up with the idea of Inferno Wings. The ghost restaurant started up in December of 2020.

Baziotis said that “not much” money was put on advertising, and instead they relied on orders through his online service, Eagle Bites.

Inferno Wings had a slow but successful start, growing attraction from local residents and students who lived on campus during the pandemic. Once Bene’s restaurant reopened, Inferno Wings closed temporarily and employees went back to their original job.

Once the property on First Street opened up, Baziotis sprung at the opportunity. The Inferno team has been working on renovations and paperwork to secure their first restaurant location.

Baziotis says that he is working with Wild Bill’s Long Bar to get a register system at their counter, so that the neighbors can work together once Inferno Wings is up and running.