Chicagoan sues Buffalo Wild Wings over boneless ‘wing’ labeling

No bones about it, Aimen Halim is very unhappy with Buffalo Wild Wings.

He’s so upset that the Chicago man recently filed a class-action lawsuit against the Atlanta-based chain, accusing the company of a “clear- cut case of false advertising.”

In his lawsuit, Halim says he bought food at a Mount Prospect Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant this year and was served boneless wings that were not, in fact, de-boned wings.

“Unbeknownst to plaintiff and other consumers, the products are not wings at all, but instead, slices of chicken breast meat deep-fried like wings. Indeed, the products are more akin, in composition, to a chicken nugget rather than a chicken wing,” Halim states in his lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

So what does Halim have against chicken breast meat?

“Chicken wings are a more premium and desirable product than a product made of chicken breast meat,” he claims.

A Buffalo Wild Wings representative directed a Chicago Sun-Times reporter to a company tweet posted Monday, apparently in response to questions about the lawsuit: “It’s true. Our boneless wings are all white meat chicken. Our hamburgers contain no ham. Our buffalo wings are 0% buffalo.”

If Buffalo Wild Wings were being “transparent,” it would instead call its boneless wings “boneless chicken,” according to the lawsuit.

“Had plaintiff and other consumers known that the products are not actually chicken wings, they would have paid less for them, or would not have purchased them at all,” the suit states. “Therefore, plaintiff and consumers have suffered injury in fact, as a result of defendants’ deceptive practices.”

The lawsuit seeks, among other things, the profits and “unjust enrichment” Buffalo Wild Wings received “as a result of its unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices.”

Halim could not be reached for comment Monday.