Red Rockets
FOUNDER PETER DELUCA CONTINUES TO PERFECT AND REDEFINE FAST FOOD IN HAMILTON
In the late 1980s when chicken wings were basically a promotional gimmick bars would use to entice crowds and sell more beer, Peter DeLuca and his friends noticed that the nights wings were served would draw lineups out the door.
Though only in their early 20s, the friends turned partners and opened a restaurant with the idea of offering chicken wings, not as a novelty item, but as the main attraction. Their takeout only restaurant put chicken wings up against pizza and Chinese food, the only other carryout options available at the time, becoming one of the first restaurants in Ontario to do so.
“It caught on right away,” says Peter. “The demand was almost more than we could handle. There were no manuals on how to sell wings. We paved the path, creating the model and operating manuals ourselves.” Realizing that combining speed with reliable quality preparation was key, Peter designed his own proprietary equipment, which is still in use after over 20 years. It allows Red Rockets to make 300 to 400 chicken wing orders every day that never vary in quality or consistency.
“In addition to offering chicken wings as a standalone, nutritional main course accompanied with side dishes, we completely transformed the recipes, offering different gourmet sauces and breading the wings, something that wasn’t common at the time,” says Peter who opened the first Red Rockets on Upper Ottawa Street in 2000 and has since opened three other locations. “Using fresh, never frozen chicken and maintaining consistency throughout the four restaurants has proven to be the biggest challenge.”
When he decided to add ribs to the menu in 2002, Peter worked for a year perfecting the recipe. “Canadians like their ribs to fall-off-thebones and I wanted to find a way to combine that with the smoked hickory wood barbeque flavour that American ribs are known for,” says Peter.
Steaming the baby back ribs first provided the requisite tenderness, but finding a way to get the flavour he was after proved a little trickier. Peter bought a smoker, but had to redesign it so that it would give the ribs that sought after smoky taste without heating them. It took another year before he was satisfied and able to fine-tune the recipe to scientific precision so that anyone working in his restaurants could simply follow the instructions and get that desired flavour and fall-offthe-bone tenderness.
Peter is often approached about expanding Red Rockets into other areas and has had franchising interest from as far away as Saudi Arabia. The entrepreneur says it will happen, but not until he refines a lunch lineup that’s currently in progress. “We are gearing up for a new lunch menu that will feature sandwiches, poutines, and something I call Red Bread that’s still in the development stage, but will be Red Rockets answer to pizza,” says Peter.
Instead of names, each sandwich is identified with a number. Peter’s personal favourite is 777, which he’s nicknamed “The Bomb.” It’s a boneless chicken breast battered in buttermilk and topped with blue cheese, crispy apple-smoked bacon, and grape jelly.
Red Rockets has been receiving awards for well over a decade. Their chicken wings have been rated #1 in the Spectator Readers’ Choice Awards for the past 8 years in a row.