Buffalo Wild Wings can continue to call their wings ‘boneless,’ judge rules

Editor’s Note: The video in the above player is from a previous report.

Buffalo Wild Wings can continue to call their wings “boneless” even though they are “essentially chicken nuggets,” an Illinois judge ruled Tuesday.

The ruling comes to a lawsuit that claims the chain’s boneless wings are not actually wings.

Aimen Halim accused the popular sports bar chain of “false and deceptive marketing and advertising” due to the alleged mislabeling of its popular menu item in a lawsuit in the United States District Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division in 2023.

Halim said he purchased the boneless wings in suburban Mount Prospect and “reasonably believed the products were actually wings that were deboned.” However, the “wings” are actually made of chicken breast meat, which is then deep-fried like wings, making the products “more akin, in composition, to a chicken nugget rather than a chicken wing,” according to the suit.

U.S. District Judge John Tharp has decided there wasn’t enough meat on the bones of Halim’s argument on Tuesday.

“Boneless wings are not a niche product for which a consumer would need to do extensive research to figure out the truth,” Tharp wrote. “Instead, “boneless wings” is a common term that has existed for over two decades.”

Despite Halim’s best efforts, he did not “drum” up enough factual allegations to satiate stating a claim.

Though Halim has the standing to file the lawsuit because he plausibly alleged economic injury by claiming that he would not have purchased the wings or would have paid significantly less for them had he known they were not actual wings, however, he does not plausibly allege that reasonable customers are fooled by the company calling them “boneless wings.”

“Although it is difficult to imagine that Halim can provide additional facts about his experience that would demonstrate that BWW is committing a deceptive act by calling its nuggets ‘boneless wings,’” Judge Tharp says, he will allow Halim to amend his initial complaint by next month.

After the story of the lawsuit went viral in 2023, Buffalo Wild Wings responded to the allegations in a social media post.

“It’s true,” the chain tweeted Monday. “Our boneless wings are all white meat chicken. Our hamburgers contain no ham. Our buffalo wings are 0% buffalo.”