Popular chicken restaurant chain Wingstop coming to Riverhead this summer

Wingstop, the popular chicken wing restaurant chain, is opening a new store in Riverhead this summer.

The store will be located between Dunkin’ and Advance Auto Parts, in the strip mall on the southwest corner of the Route 58 traffic circle. The restaurant is targeting a July opening, according to Doug Tedesco of Massapequa, a partner in Brand Management, the franchisee. 

“We probably started looking in Riverhead about three years ago, and we finally found a space that would fit us — that would be in the heart of Riverhead and capture both the chorus and the people who live in Riverhead,” Tedesco said. 

“Riverhead is a very strong market. We hope it is going to be one of our strongest markets,” Tedesco said. Depending on the exact opening date, this will be Brand Management’s sixth or seventh Wingstop on Long Island, he added. 

Currently, the closest Wingstop to Riverhead is in Shirley. There are 72 Wing Stop locations in New York State — more than half of them in the New York City boroughs, according to the company’s website.

“We do a lot of business,” Tedesco said. Most of the stores’ sales are traditional bone-in chicken wings, he said. The restaurant also serves chicken sandwiches, boneless wings, tenders, french fries and fried corn. 

“We make our ranch fresh daily and our blue cheese fresh daily,” Tedesco said, refering to the two popular wing dipping sauces.

Wingstop is a publicly traded company that has experienced strong growth in recent years, according to its financial disclosures. As of the end of the first quarter this year, it had 2,689 stores open, most of them in the United States. The company opened more than 400 new locations between March 2024 and March 2025, and its system-wide sales last quarter totaled $1.3 billion, according to the disclosures.