Burgers, bagels and fizz add variety to old favorites at Wild Goats Café
Patrons can pull up to one of the designated spots to pick up their food from either Front Door Burger, Flash Bagel Co. or FizziMoo
Wild Goats is the brick and mortar for three ghost kitchens: Front Door Burger, Flash Bagels and FizziMoo. Charlie Ciborek, owner of Wild Goats and the WG Group, created these concepts with the help of his management team.
“The WG group is a collection of restaurant concepts partnering together and working out the shared space of Wild Goats Café,” according to the website. “We share a physical location and a crew. Sometimes we even share menu items and ingredients, but each concept has its own unique menu and identity.”
Ciborek decided to make these all separate entities rather than adding the new options to the normal Wild Goats menu.
“It’s hard to get traction on new product, on a new concept,” Ciborek said. “We dance a very thin line of not wanting to diminish who we are and what’s made us successful and what’s made us part of the Kent scene for more than a decade.”
Front Door Burger – December 2020
Front Door Burger launched during the pandemic as a core part of the business in the Wild Goats Cafe building.
“Conceptually, Front Door Burger is bringing the flavor and experience of an old-fashioned burger stand, something that my grandparents might have experienced, to you, wherever you were,” Ciborek said.
The focus on the business is how the burger travels and how to keep the food as fresh as it would be straight out of the kitchen. By doing this, none of the named burgers have lettuce or tomatoes on them due to wilting, Ciborek said.
“The burger is designed to be better five minutes after it was cooked,” he said.
Flash Bagel Co. – March 2022
Flash Bagel Co. offers a variety of eight or nine different bagels overnighted from Queens, New York. They are served with a homemade schmear or made into sandwiches.
“It’s genuine New York City bagels right here whether you’re picking them up from us or whether we’re bringing them to you,” Ciborek said.
Unlike normal bagels, New York bagels are not sliced and dropped in a toaster; they are put into the oven unsliced to get crispy. After they are toasted, they are sliced, and the inside is still warm. They are “providing a guest experience that just didn’t exist here in Kent,” Ciborek said.
FizziMoo Sips and Snacks launches inside Wild Goats in June 2022 and as its own entity in July
FizziMoo is its own entity, and the drink provider for all of the ghost kitchens along with being an option at Wild Goats. The concept of the brand came from Utah’s “dirty sodas,” which is the concept of adding items, such as creamers and flavoring syrups, usually put in coffee, into sodas instead.
“FizziMoo is born out of a desire to augment all of our concepts and all of our brands with higher quality beverage,” Ciborek said.
There is over a dozen drink bases “from soda to iced coffee to lattes to steamers
to milkshakes.” There are also over 50 different editions and toppers that can
be added with over 200 million different beverage combinations, Ciborek said.
There are currently 99 named drinks and the 100 will be named soon.
They launched FizziNow inside of FizziMoo where anyone can pull into a designated parking space, place their order online and receive it within one to four minutes.
All of the options are on DoorDash, and some are on UberEats, but Ciborek recommends people order independently since the money goes right back to the restaurant.
Along with the drinks, it offers a classic New York black and white and has a rotation of three or four other cookie options.
All four concepts open at 7:30 a.m. with varying closing times.
Alexandra Golden is managing editor. Contact her at [email protected].
Alex is a senior journalism major and is getting a minor in criminology and justice studies. She enjoys writing about anything, but she focuses primarily...