Chef, 26, rises from rough childhood to open own restaurant

Many chefs discover a passion for cooking during childhood: They peel potatoes with Mom, brown roux with Dad or whip meringue with Grandma.

John Hackney is not one of those chefs.

He's just 26 and preparing to open a brick-and-mortar version of Wing Fingers, the food truck he launched last year in Lafayette, Louisiana.

As a child, Hackney survived on ham sandwiches and ramen noodles.

He wasn't picky. He was poor.

By the age of 16, he had lost his mother, moved cross-country and dropped out of high school.

That's also the age he vowed to never eat a bad meal again.

Hackney grew up an hour's drive west of Las Vegas in Pahrump, Nevada.

It was just Hackney and his mother — and a few stepdads that came and went. His mother suffered from drug addiction.

"We didn't have the best relationship," Hackney says. "Addiction is an animal."

As a teen, Hackney lost his mother to lung cancer, but he felt as though he'd lost her years earlier to drugs.

"It taught me that you can never help anybody else until you help yourself," he says. "I know I'll never earn anything without working for it. If you want to come from nothing, you have to work for it."

Hackney was about 14 when he moved from Nevada to Erath, Louisiana, to live with his dad.

School wasn't his priority, so he decided to drop out at 16.

His father was "extremely upset and confused" because Hackney did well in school, but allowed him to drop out as long as he got his high school equivalency degree.

Hackney earned his diploma a week later.

"I wasn't dumb," he says. "I just didn't care about that kind of an education. Learning history wasn't what I was interested in. I was interested in things I could touch, like food. I wanted a life view, a world view."

Hackney worked.

He worked at McDonald's. He worked at Bruce Foods. He worked at Jimmy John's. He worked at Chili's and Zea and Marcello's.

He worked two jobs at a time; he worked 60 or more hours each week.

"You don't wait for opportunity," Hackney says. "You make it."

He worked until he could move from Erath to New Iberia and from New Iberia to Lafayette.

That's where he met two people who would help him achieve his dream of being a chef.

David Graeff, former executive chef of Marcello's Wine Market Cafe, hired him as a dish washer and eventually promoted him to the no. 2 position in the fine dining restaurant's kitchen.

Although hired as a dishwasher, Hackney never washed a dish at Marcello's.

His first day of work, somebody didn't show up at the salad station. Graeff asked Hackney if he could jump on the line.

"I said, 'I'd rather try and fail than work dishes for three months,'" Hackney recalls. "I killed it that night. They gave me a better position and a raise and told me I'd never be touching dishes."

Graeff considered Hackney to be his go-to guy.

"I definitely want to see him succeed," Graeff says. "He was always working two jobs and doing everything he could to get his name out there."

Taylor Cooper, who worked for Hackney at Jimmy John's, recognized Hackney's passion and talent for cooking and eventually took a chance on opening a restaurant with him.

"I knew he had what it takes," Cooper says. "It's been his dream to be a head chef, and he'd been cooking awesome food for me, so I sold my car, and we used that money to make the down payment on a food truck."

Hackney and Cooper opened Wing Fingers in May.

It was the final day of classes for University of Louisiana at Lafayette students.

Cooper, 26, is one of those students. He is just a semester away from earning a degree.

The Wing Fingers food trailer quickly gained a following over the summer through social media and word-of-mouth.

"We had 1,000 followers on Instagram in the first month of opening," Cooper says. "And that's helped us to create a kind of cult following."

Wing Fingers offers boneless wings with sauce options that include hot honey, bourbon barbecue, lemon pepper, curry, buffalo and strawbenero.

The wings are served over sides, such as coleslaw or pepper jack mac.

"We're trying to do gourmet wings," Hackney says. "You're not just getting meat with sauce on it. We use garnish. All of our food comes on a bed of something, like coleslaw or pepper jack mac and cheese, and then it gets a topping."

The restaurant's signature strawbenero — strawberry habanero — is topped with diced strawberries.

In addition to wings, Finger Wings also serves burgers, chicken sandwiches, fries, mozzarella sticks and fried jalapenos.

Hackney handles the food side of things as the executive chef, and Cooper handles the business side of things.

"My goal was to help John get into that position of head chef," Cooper says.

"And after this, I want to find more people who know what they want to do but don't necessarily have the means to do it and help them make it happen."

Cooper and Hackney are adding the finishing touches to their brick-and-mortar restaurant near the UL campus as students take final exams this week.

Wing Fingers will officially open this weekend at 103 Johnston St. in the building that once housed Poet's.

The grand opening, which will include live entertainment, will take place from 11 a.m. Saturday until 2 a.m. Sunday.

Regular restaurant hours will be:

7 to 2 a.m. Monday through Thursday

7 to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday

The brick-and-mortar restaurant will offer a larger menu than the food truck, but the focus will still be on the signature dish.

In addition to boneless wings, the restaurant will offer bone-in wings. Each order is tossed in sauce and served over coleslaw, french fries or pepper jack mac.

Here's a look at the sauce options:

strawbenero: local strawberries, fresh habaneros and sweet barbecue sauce topped with diced strawberries and green onion

local strawberries, fresh habaneros and sweet barbecue sauce topped with diced strawberries and green onion hot honey: local honey, cayenne and soy sauce topped with diced sweet peppers

local honey, cayenne and soy sauce topped with diced sweet peppers buffalo: garlic- and jalapeno-infused cayenne pepper sauce topped with green onion, served with ranch

garlic- and jalapeno-infused cayenne pepper sauce topped with green onion, served with ranch bourbon barbecue: sweet barbecue sauce and Kentucky bourbon topped with green onion, served with lime

sweet barbecue sauce and Kentucky bourbon topped with green onion, served with lime habanero honey mustard: fresh habaneros, local honey and mustard topped with diced sweet peppers and green onion

fresh habaneros, local honey and mustard topped with diced sweet peppers and green onion sweet chili: sweet chili, red pepper sauce and pepper jelly topped with sesame seeds and green onion

sweet chili, red pepper sauce and pepper jelly topped with sesame seeds and green onion honey garlic: aged honey infused with sugar, garlic and black pepper dry rub topped with hot honey drizzle and green onion

aged honey infused with sugar, garlic and black pepper dry rub topped with hot honey drizzle and green onion lemon pepper: lemon zest, lemon-infused white pepper and black pepper dry rub topped with green onion, served with lemon

lemon zest, lemon-infused white pepper and black pepper dry rub topped with green onion, served with lemon curry: coriander, turmeric, cumin and garlic dry rub topped with green onion, served with lemon and lime

The restaurant will also serve breakfast biscuit sandwiches, bar snacks and craft beer.

"We'll have that typical sports bar menu and do it right," Hackney says.

"We're doing it fresh. We're doing it balanced. I want to put in the work for people to get a good product and feel good after eating it. We're not using frozen product. It's all fresh."

Hackney never intended to open a wing restaurant.

He started making wings while working at Marcello's because the restaurant had no use for wings when breaking down chickens.

"I grew up poor," Hackney says. "I couldn't stand the idea of throwing away 10 pounds of wings a week, so I started frying them up and serving them with whatever sauces we had around — garlic parm or whatever."

The staff went crazy for the wings, and the rest is history.

Learn more by visiting facebook.com/wingfingers.

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Note: This story has been updated to reflect the new location and opening information for Wing Fingers. Hackney and Cooper originally planned to open their brick-and-mortar restaurant in the former Gallagher's location at 405 E. University Ave.