Wings and ribs

Toughest for both of those is to know your PAR levels and if you don't have consistent customer #'s, then maybe just do ribs on weekends or at your discretion (drive traffic to come in on off days for ribs).

There are some tricks to reheating ribs (involves foil AND plastic wrap) but I don't like them in a restaurant setting, the quality, while I can get good ribs, the quality just suffers. Let's see what some other say.

For wings, we would brine/smoke ahead and them portion control them into separate bags and hold cold with day/dates on all of them. We only did enough for 2 days, 3 days max then rotated new stock in.

I've worked with similar situation. Difference for me is that I don't have a deep fryer, so I did wings purely in the smoker (in our FEC 120 running hot). They come out nice and crisp similar to fried, with a nice golden color and just the right smoke taste. If I had a deep fryer, I'd do them like Okie' mentioned, brine and smoke, then fry in small loads. No way I could reheat wings done like that, so will convert them to something else that can use chicken pulled off the bone. For ribs, we have reheated on occasion if stuck with a lot for some reason, but only the nice fat babybacks come back to life well. I couldn't really do it with St. Louis cut or spares. Also, depending how your smoking and finishing your ribs can affect their 'afterlife'. You can also look at optionally cooking your ribs a little hotter and faster, perhaps letting you squeeze a quick load in pre-dinner hour if you had a busy lunch. Also, watch your numbers well to try and see 'trends' to help avoid leftover product. I know that Thursdays are my weaker day to sell ribs, I know Saturdays are our biggest day to sell ribs. As a rule of thumb, I watch what sells during the lunch hour, then I typically make sure I'm prepped to sell 5 times that many racks at dinner time. Of course weather and other factors have an affect, but I like to at least have a predictive approach. Also, as an alternative to reheating, you can explore other uses for the ribs. You can always get creative - maybe your version of 'Tuffy's Brisket & Rib Sandwich', and sauce up yesterdays ribs pulled off the bone on top of fresh sliced brisket. Our 'signature' sandwich is called 'The Big Bite' (named after the restaurant), which is our Brisket, topped with slaw, topped with pork, then candied smoked bacon. It's a monster of a sandwich, and very popular.
Rick

Thanks for the input guys... I don't deep fry wings either, just smoked. I do have some good options to use left over meat, sandwiches, tacos, etc... With ribs, I dry rub with my rub recipe and smoke, no sauce, it's served on the side (most people don't use sauce b/c they love the rub). I haven't had a problem with lost product on chicken, thinking with ribs experimenting with portions: full rack, half rack, quarter, even by the bone option...maybe I'm stubborn, but I only order fresh meat, so when I get wings, ribs, etc... there is a definite shelf life b/c I'm not into freezing and thawing then cooking. Thanks guys for the ideas.