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Ryan Bourdon has loved chicken wings since he was young. In August 2023, wanting to introduce them to his son, Mason — who was about the same age Ryan had been when he first tried wings — W1ngnutZ315 was born.

“I was looking for something for him and I to do together, and I love chicken wings, and he had just started trying chicken wings,” Ryan said. “I just said, ‘Hey, you want to start doing a video?’ and that’s how it started.”

Almost two and a half years and 64 videos later, 53-year-old Ryan and 13-year-old Mason have tried a total of 1,176 wings and 58 different flavors — and counting — on their wing-review channel. They film themselves trying chicken wings at restaurants across central New York and are currently on season five.

The duo began posting content on YouTube before scaling to other platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. TikTok is their most popular, Ryan said. The family lives in Marcellus, but that doesn’t stop them from trying wings across the area.

From Orange Crate Brewing Co. to The Old Ledge in Syracuse, they have also traveled to Rochester, Buffalo and Solvay to try different wings.

When they visited Orange Crate on South Crouse Avenue, Mason tried sweet and sour and garlic Parmesan wings, while Ryan tried the Crate Sauce and the Crate Gold wings.

The Old Ledge’s wings are Ryan’s third personal favorite, he said. At the restaurant, they tried Bone Dust wings, which had spices like cumin, paprika and more, and Sal’s wings, which were barbecue, hot honey and garlic, and spicy peach.

Most of their videos are reviews of smaller, local restaurants around upstate New York. Though they currently have around 100 subscribers on YouTube and nearly 1,000 TikTok followers, the duo still tries to review a new wing spot once a week, mostly over the weekend to accommodate Mason’s school schedule.

Ryan credits his wife, Cherie Bourdon, for coming up with the W1ngnutZ name. Though Cherie has never been on camera, she has joined her husband and son for some reviews. But, she usually orders something other than wings off the menu, she said.

“Mason, when he was little, always said that dad was nuts for wings,” Cherie said. “So, I was like, ‘Oh, you should just call it wing nuts!’”

Ryan and Mason added 315 to the username to differentiate it from the wing restaurant with the same name in Buffalo — which they ended up reviewing in July.

Mason designed a logo for their channel, which they printed on black shirts they wear in the videos. Since Christmas, they’ve upgraded their merchandise, now sporting blue sweatshirts with their signature logo in every video.

They decided to do the reviews as 12-episode seasons, inspired by some of Mason’s favorite content creators. Their first review was of Pizza Boise, now called 315 Pizza Company, in Marcellus. Mason got his favorite flavor, the salt and pepper wings, and Ryan tried the Golden Fever wings. They filmed the review in their backyard.

“That was very, very raw. No clue what we were doing,” Ryan said. “But now we’re more into it.”

Since then, Ryan purchased a phone stand and microphones, which he said has improved the video quality. Mason edits videos for the channel, using his experience from creating stop-motion YouTube videos when he was younger.

Since Ryan and Mason started their channel, Ryan has tracked every place they have reviewed through a notebook. Each page details the location, type of wings, price and what kind of blue cheese because they “love Ken’s Blue Cheese,” Ryan said.

In their first few videos, they took the wings home and reviewed them in their own backyard. This changed in September 2023 after season one, episode four, when they decided to start filming inside the restaurants. A few seasons later, they were asked to come back and film at Moondance Restaurant in Marcellus.

Since then, their videos have been filmed inside the restaurants where they describe the atmosphere and review the wings.

While they reviewed Buffalo Wild Wings in season one and Popeyes in season two, Ryan said they received backlash from their viewers for reviewing chains. But, Ryan said he might make an exception for a new Wingstop location opening 10 minutes away from them in Camillus.

So far, Mason’s favorite dining experience has been the Bar-Bill East in Rochester, he said. Bar-Bill East also made Ryan’s top three.

But, Mason considers the wings at Bar-Bill East number three on his list, with Golden Spike Pub in East Syracuse and The Angry Goat Pub in Rochester beating it out for two and one.

Another highlight for Ryan, Mason and Cherie was their trip to Wingnutz in Buffalo. The three decided to stop by on their way home from Toronto and were pleasantly surprised by the service they were given.

“They were so good to us. We had so much food that they were giving us to try. We could not even come close to eating all the food,” Ryan said. “And then they gave us hats that have chicken wings on them, and then they gave us pens.”

Since they’ve started their channel, Mason’s palette for wings has also expanded, trying more than his signature wing flavor of salt and pepper.

“Then I did barbecue, and then I started doing other flavors,” Mason said.

Early on, Mason would try a couple wings but would also order a burger or something else to eat, Cherie said. Now, he is “all about the wings,” she said.

Beyond their growing love for wings, the duo both said their favorite part about starting the channel has been the time they have been able to spend together amid busy work and school schedules. Ryan works as a full-time utilities operator at Budweiser.

“A lot of times I can’t hear what he’s saying when I’m talking, so there’s a lot of background that he chimes in with jokes and stuff, and afterwards we’ll be watching and I’d be like, ‘I didn’t even know he said that,’” Ryan said.

While Cherie does join in on some of the barbecue visits, she said the reviews are something for the two of them to do together.

Mason summed up his favorite part of the channel in one sentence.

“Just having fun, like being able to bond through videos and have fun with each other,” Mason said.

Published on April 6, 2026 at 10:19 pm