Piraveen Jegatheswaran and his partner Sarujan Kanagasingam are making Downtown Guelph a little more flavourful.
While he owns multiple businesses, this is the first time Jegatheswaran has ventured into the restaurant business with The Wing Spot at 23 Quebec St.
The new franchise, open now but set to have its official launch in two weeks, has 100 wing flavours, including 'The Royal City,' which is a honey-garlic base with homicide sauce, topped off with ranch and teriyaki sauce.
The location was previously home to the burger joint Smashies. Now it's home to a bar and wing haven.
“You can't go wrong with wings and beer, right?” said co-owner Jegatheswaran.
He was drawn to Guelph because of its community-oriented culture and its people who want his business to work.
The mural in the Guelph location shows support for the Guelph Storm and has a photo of the CN Tower reading Royal City, to show where the franchise came from and where it is.
“The main thing was that a lot of people out here are super nice,” said Jegatheswaran.
Flavours range in spices and styles. They include ones named after countries, such as Japanense jerk, to ones that are freestyles flavours, like Malvern boys, homicide blonde and spicy plum.
“It all starts from an original basis and then it's just a freestyle of a whole bunch of stuff,” said Jegatheswaran who created the flavours together with Kanagasingam.
He said when you have 100 flavours, you never get bored.
“This makes you want to keep coming back. Keep wanting to try everything on the menu,” said Jegatheswaran.
He said when his realtor showed the location to him and Kanagasingam, they were hesitant to sign the lease.
It wasn’t until they spoke to passersby on the street to test the market that they were sold.
“We went around the neighbourhood and we spoke to a couple of people while we're walking around, they're all friendly people and everybody was like, We’re in need of a wing spot out here,” said Jegatheswaran.
“We want to try and get involved with the communities. I don't want to just take all the money and just go back.”
Jegatheswaran said out of the seven franchise locations — that include Scarborough, Ajax, Alliston, Guelph and Barrie — five were open during the pandemic and each location has its unique touch to show support for the city it’s in.
He said his interest in the restaurant business began when his friend who owns The Wing Spot offered him a chance to become a franchisee.
“I just felt like the concept itself was nice. The brand was nice. And I wanted to help build the brand. Yeah. When it comes down to it, the amount of people that you're meeting, it goes a long way,” said Jegatheswaran.
He is expecting to have the restaurant’s liquor license approved in two weeks and aims to have an official opening on March 1.
