If a restaurant has exposed Edison bulbs, metal stools without backs, and a menu that says “Shareables,” you are about to pay $19 for six underwhelming chicken wings. Meanwhile, the best wings within fifteen miles of my house are coming out of a strip-mall storefront wedged between an H&R Block and a dry cleaner where the menu board is missing the plastic letter “E.”

I picked up twenty wings there on Friday night, and before I even left the parking lot, I noticed the detail that separates pros from amateurs: the guy behind the counter took a ballpoint pen and poked two vent holes in the top corners of the styrofoam box before handing the bag across the counter.

Most places seal hot fried chicken inside an airtight foam coffin, which turns crispy skin into wet cardboard by the time you hit your third traffic light. Those two pen holes let the steam escape while trapping the heat. Fifteen minutes later on my kitchen counter, the lemon-pepper wings still had an audible crunch, the meat pulled clean off the bone, and they didn’t charge me an extra $1.50 for the second cup of blue cheese.