Asado Wing & Taco Company (owners of the Flyin’ Pig) open in former Empire location Saturday

Bridget Douglas
April 3, 2015

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Empire closed last October after over a decade. It had been under the new management of Thor LeVesque for about a year and a half.

“He was doing more of a punk rock late night thing,” said Stephen Rogge, co-owner of the Flyin’ Pig in Midlothian, who took over the former Empire location to start his new venture. “He was just having a hard time getting the younger crowd in.”

Rogge and his partners Ian Anderson and Kevin McGrath opened the Flyin’ Pig back in 2013. A bar and a grill with barbecue, burgers, tacos, wings, etc. The restaurant has been really successful and now they’re starting a new venture.

Asado Wing & Taco Company  is just about ready  at 727 W. Broad St. and their official grand-opening will be on Saturday.

The menu is short and sweet: wings, tacos, nachos and chips. They chose their favorite menu items and customer favorites from the Flyin’ Pig. And they’ve got a full bar. The food as well as the interior of the restaurant is southwestern inspired.

“I have family in New Mexico and that’s where I first got some of the recipes from,” said Rogge. “As far as the interior goes we like the stainless steel and the wood.”

The windows are sleek, clean and big –  it gives the sense of being outside as you’re able to see your surroundings.

As far as the food, there will be no filet mignon or anything like that offered for the tacos.

The emphasis is quick service. The food is also relatively cheap so that students can easily afford it. They offer brisket, pork, buffalo chicken, Cajun chicken and even bison.

“We do the low and slow method with the smoked meats so you’ve got to put a little more time into it but the flavor you get out of it is awesome,” said Rogge.

For the vegetarians they have a Taco Salad and Papas Bravas tacos filled with seasoned potatoes, Queso Blanco and seasoned peppers. They have guac too for all of you guac lovers.

Probably the best taco is their fish taco made with wild-caught Alaskan cod, which comes smoked or fried. There also have four types of Hickory Smoked Chicken wings. Oh and everything is homemade, can’t beat that.

Also, hoping to attract the athletically-enthused, Asado has 8 decent sized TV’s playing all of kind of sports all year long.

“We have the NFL Sunday ticket which is where you get every single NFL game that’s being played,” said Rogge. “That’s the kind of stuff we’d want to go see if we went out.”

Their hours will be Sunday-Wednesday 11-9pm and late night Thursday-Saturday 11-2am. So for the drunken VCU students on the weekend, they can come grab a quick taco or some wings and hang out for a bit.

There will also be several daily specials: Sundays half priced Sangria, Margarita Mondays, Tuesday Tacos and Wednesday Wings.

The Sangria is homemade and there are three different types: Pomegranate, White Cranberry Peach (Pink) and Apple Cinnamon, as well as different variations of margaritas and piña coladas.

After five months of putting the place together it has come to fruition. Funny enough the Empire sign is still there on top of the building, Rogge says because of roof conditions.

“I guess the way they had anchored it, it created roof damage so they’re not letting people up on the roof,” said Rogge. “We were actually going to do that first. That’s such an awesome sign though.”

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