Doolittles Chicken Company serving up savory wings in Mount Gilead

By Tay­lor Kaser -

The answer to all of Mor­row County’s chicken angst can be found at Doolit­tles Chicken Com­pany in Mt. Gilead. Located on Iberia St. near Save A Lot, Doolit­tles was inspired by good chicken and Jimmy Doolit­tle, a high fly­ing WW II gen­eral who served in the Pacific.

Owned by Steve Roter­mund, Doolittle’s offers 21 sauces for their wings, includ­ing bone­less and skin­less wings.

Roter­mund, who also owns an avi­a­tion clean­ing com­pany, says he’s always been inter­ested in fly­ing. He’s also served as an ordained min­is­ter, work­ing as a youth min­is­ter in West­er­ville before he moved to Mor­row County. Roter­mund has also worked for the Mor­row County Sheriff’s Office — and still serves as a reserve deputy. He pointed to his inter­est in WW II and its impact on mod­ern avi­a­tion as part of inspi­ra­tion for Doolittle’s.

“Dri­ving around with the Sheriff’s Office, there was nowhere to eat.” said Roter­mund of his shifts that usu­ally con­sisted of evening and night shifts. He said the avi­a­tion indus­try looked rocky a cou­ple of years ago and he decided he needed to diver­sify. The idea for the restau­rant began and evolved last November.

Rotermund’s brother-in-law owns a pizza and wings fran­chise and Roter­mund was able to learn and pick up ideas from him. He took the aspects he liked best about that busi­ness and com­bined it with a WW II avi­a­tion theme.

“We’ve had great reviews so far,” Roter­mund said of keep­ing the menu sim­ple. He explained that the bone­less skinny bites are a healthy alter­na­tive to the orig­i­nal wings.

About 70% of all busi­ness fail, said Roter­mund, due to three fac­tors: 1) over­head — like build­ing rent, 2) too large of a menu and keep­ing all of that fresh food on hand, 3) and high labor costs and a incon­sis­tent or bad product.

The wings are great for par­ties, espe­cially foot­ball games and spe­cial­ity plat­ters can be ordered.

A grand open­ing is set for some­time in mid Octo­ber and Roter­mund hopes to have some OSU foot­ball play­ers attend, with activ­i­ties includ­ing a wing eat­ing con­test for adults and kids, and maybe a fiery sauce chal­lenge, “It will be excit­ing and fun.”

Doolit­tles has a Face­book page and a free app that can be down­loaded on smart phones to look at the menu and order from, with­out hav­ing to even call.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Sep 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.