Buffalo Wild Wings: Everything You Need To Know About The Chain Restaurant
It was a fluke discovery in 1964, but it led to a nationwide phenomenon. The widely accepted story is that it was Teressa Bellissimo of Buffalo's Anchor Bar who first came up with the idea of deep-frying wings and covering them with sauce, but in the years since, almost every kind of sauce imaginable has been slathered on chicken wings. There's only one true buffalo wing, though — just ask anyone who hails from The Nickel City.
Once you have the real thing, there's no going back. There's something undeniably delicious about real, authentic buffalo wings, and that's the craving Buffalo Wild Wings was built on. The brainchild of childhood friends Jim Disbrow and Scott Lowery, the casual sports bar was created with the goal of bringing authentic buffalo wings to the rest of the country. BW3 spread (Did you catch that other W? We'll talk about that later.), and they had a very interesting journey. Here are some things you might not know about this massively popular chain.
Buffalo Wild Wings started in Ohio
It seems like it might be a given that this chain started in Buffalo, but it didn't — in fact, BW3's actual connections to Buffalo are somewhat tenuous.
The first location was opened in Columbus, Ohio, not far from The Ohio State University. The idea was born in 1981 and doors opened in 1982, and at the helm was Kentucky native Jim Disbrow. Disbrow had moved to Cincinnati when he was 11, and he was adopted by figure skaters David and Rita Lowery. Their son, Scott, would later become the other half of BW3's founding duo.
Disbrow moved to Buffalo in 1974, and was back in Ohio a few years later. He was lamenting the fact he couldn't find a good chicken wing anywhere, so he and Lowery decided to open their own chicken wing joint in the spirit of the wings Disbrow had discovered in Buffalo. Other locations opened slowly, and they didn't hit the point of franchising until 1991.
What's the other W in BW3?
Originally, that third W was supposed to represent another incredible, super-regional piece of Buffalo's unique food landscape: weck. It was first called Buffalo Wild Wings & Weck, and it's not entirely surprising that the last part was dropped — if you're not from Buffalo, you probably haven't got the foggiest idea what weck is.
Weck is short for kummelweck (or, alternatively, kimmelweck). No one's really sure where the super-regional delicacy started, but The Chicago Tribune found it has roots in the late 1800s and the German immigrants that settled in the Western New York area. The caraway-and-salt-topped rolls are chewy inside and hard on the outside, and since they hold up to liquid, they're perfect for soaking in au jus and still holding beef — hence, beef on weck.
So, why did Buffalo Wild Wings drop the weck? Bizarrely, attempts to make a true, Buffalo-style weck roll outside of Western New York have failed, and they're not easy to export. They get rock-hard overnight, so it's probably best to just stick to the wings.
What happened to that Tuesday deal at Buffalo Wild Wings?
Half-Price Wings Tuesday at Buffalo Wild Wings was the highlight of the week for coworkers and drinking buddies everywhere, but that came to an abrupt end in 2017. It was replaced with a buy-one, get-one offer on boneless wings, and that makes you wonder why the chain would have gotten rid of such a massively popular deal in favor of a new one that, at a glance, is essentially the same thing.
According to Business Insider, it all had to do with margins. Half-Price Wings got a ton of people in the door, but the rising cost of chicken wings meant BW3 wasn't making as much as it should have been from all that foot traffic. Enter the boneless wing. These pseudo-wings might be increasing in popularity, but they weren't hit by the same skyrocketing prices that traditional wings were — making the boneless wing deal much more profitable to Buffalo Wild Wings's bottom line.
Did it work? Absolutely. Business Insider says BW3 profits — and stocks — soared after it made the switch, and that's a huge deal that allowed Buffalo Wild Wings to stay profitable and keep the doors open.
Traditional wings aren't the biggest seller at Buffalo Wild Wings
Chicken wings are a big deal in the States, and in case you doubt, consider this: the National Chicken Council says Americans ate an estimated 1.35 billion wings ... just during 2018's Super Bowl. For some perspective, they also say if you were to take all 32 NFL stadiums and fill the seats with that many wings, every chair would have to hold 625 wings. That number was up a shocking 20 million wings from just the year before, so you'd think chicken wings would be BW3's biggest seller. They're not.
As of 2016, boneless wings stepped up to take over the majority of chicken wing sales at Buffalo Wild Wings. They're the fastest-growing section of the market, and Business Insider says that while 2015's nationwide numbers suggest love for boneless vs. traditional wings was split pretty evenly (with traditional wings slightly in the lead), just a year later Buffalo Wild Wings was reporting that it was selling more boneless wings. Efficiency, or sacrilege?
What are those boneless wings at Buffalo Wild Wings, anyway?
Sure, you might not think twice about calling them boneless wings, but what are they really? They're actually not wings at all, and according to The New Food Economy, they're made by cutting a chicken breast in five pieces, then tossing it in a fryer. That's it.
They came about in a weird way. Chicken wings were getting more and more popular, thanks to places like Buffalo Wild Wings, and even if chickens were grown bigger and better, they still only had a limited number of wings (That's in spite of what you might have heard about KFC breeding mutant chickens). Trying to keep up with the demand for wings meant there was an oversupply of other cuts of meat — which were then made into "boneless wings" to satisfy supply and still give customers what they wanted. Sort of.
And, in case you're wondering, there's no machine that's capable of removing the bone from a real chicken wing.
There's a new Buffalo Wild Wings in town
There's no denying that one day, millennials are going to be running the world. Pieces of that world are slowly adjusting to stay more relevant to their changing tastes, and according to Business Insider, Buffalo Wild Wings is doing just that by opening B-Dubs Express.
It first opened in 2017 in Edina, Minnesota, and it's a template the chain is looking at exploring to target a group that traditionally shuns casual dining. Rather than the traditional sports bar atmosphere you see in most locations, these new express stores are ultra-focused on take-out, even though they'll still have a relatively small amount of seating.
CEO Sally Smith explained the new direction like this: "Millennial consumers are more attracted than their elders to cooking at home, ordering delivery from restaurants, and eating quickly, in fast-casual or quick-serve restaurants." So, that's what the chain is trying, and you might see these popping up across the brand's footprint.
Buffalo Wild Wings takes beer seriously
It's no secret that BW3 takes its beer almost as seriously as it takes its chicken wings, and there's a good reason for that — what goes better with wings, after all? According to The Motley Fool, about 20% of Buffalo Wild Wings's profits come from the sale of beer, and even more impressive? Thanks to its 1,200-odd locations, it's the largest pourer of draft beer in the country.
Part of that success was thanks to limited-run craft brews like Fandom Ale and Game Changer Ale, and part of it is thanks to a tiered system put in place to ensure customers have the best possible beer selection.
The bigger the restaurant, the more taps it might have — according to CNBC, some might have 30 beers on tap, but they're monitored to make sure they're all popular enough that the kegs run out before they compromise quality. And every restaurant subscribes to a three-tier system. At the top, there are beers that are in every Buffalo Wild Wings across the country — brands like Budweiser. The second tier is made up of state, regional, or major-market favorites, and the last tier leaves it up to the individual restaurant to find something super-local, seasonal, or whatever customers request the most.
Buffalo Wild Wings had vegetarian troubles
You might assume that anyone going to Buffalo Wild Wings isn't going to be looking for a vegetarian option, but with more and more people opting to go meat-free, there's bound to be one in every group of friends heading out to watch the game. In 2016, one vegetarian customer sued after finding out menu items she thought were vegetarian — mozzarella sticks and french fries — were actually fried in beef tallow.
There was a catch, though, and it was a pretty big one that led to the suit being thrown out. Buffalo Wild Wings never advertised or labeled any items as being vegetarian — she just assumed they were. According to Forbes, plaintiff Alexa Borenkoff and her attorney were going to continue to fight the suit even after getting it tossed out of court, saying Buffalo Wild Wings was guilty of misrepresentation and omission. For Buffalo Wild Wings' side, it said Borenkoff hadn't told them about any dietary restrictions and couldn't prove that she'd actually been hurt by the beef tallow fries, so that was that.
Buffalo Wild Wings had a national anthem controversy
In 2017, Buffalo Wild Wings was sent scrambling to defuse a story that started circulating on the internet. According to the claim, it was company policy to turn off or mute the national anthem, because it was too controversial to show. To add insult to injury, the incident that started it all was said to have happened on September 11.
Snopes says there was a little bit of truth to this one. One California BW3 did have an employee who turned off the volume for the national anthem and claimed it was policy. But, they also add that Buffalo Wild Wings came out with a statement saying that was never, ever its company policy and made it clear that it was disappointed the whole thing ever happened. Buffalo Wild Wings' CEO at the time was a military veteran so clearly, this definitely wasn't a policy. The employee was no longer working for the company by the time the statement was released, with the franchisee's CMO stating, "We don't know why he did that, and we wish he hadn't done it."
Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding, and Buffalo Wild Wings
The drama surrounding Tonya Harding's alleged engineered attack on figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan was one of the highest-profile cases of the 1990s, and BW3 has a strange connection to it all.
Founder Jim Disbrow wasn't just a chicken wing pioneer, he was also the chairman of the U.S. Figure Skating Association International Committee when things went down. When it came time for Kerrigan to prove she had recovered enough to make a safe appearance at the Olympics, she needed to skate in front of a review panel who then reported to Disbrow.
According to The Washington Post, Disbrow oversaw the whole thing and it was such a big deal, his 2002 obituary talked more about his role in the figure skating world than his role in founding BW3. When he passed away after a battle with brain cancer, the Star Tribune reported he had also been a Team Leader for the 1998 Olympic Team, the chair for the World Figure Skating Championships, and president of the USFSA after years of coaching and judging national and global competitions.
It's easy to make your own Buffalo Wild Wings wings
BW3 has a ton of sauces: 19, to be exact, and 5 seasonings. You can order things like bourbon honey mustard, parmesan garlic, lemon pepper, mango habanero, and Thai curry, and those are all great. But they're not buffalo wings — not if you're a purist. It's actually super easy to make your own, authentic buffalo wings, and we tell you how in this article.
It's definitely not difficult, and even though BW3 offers a ton of options when it comes to wing sauce, there's only one true buffalo sauce. You can make it at home — you might even have the ingredients already, and you should definitely give it a shot, because it's not just brilliant on wings. It's great for fries, chips, burgers, tacos ... you get the idea. The recipe? A half cup of Frank's RedHot Sauce (the original, not any of the funny versions) and one-third cup of butter. That's it! You're welcome.
Buffalo Wild Wings has an unlikely sibling: Arby's
Way back in ye olden days of 2017, Buffalo Wild Wings admitted it was struggling. It was starting to sell corporate-owned locations off to franchisees, and that's always something of a questionable sign. Then, more news went public: Business Insider reported that the brand had sealed a deal with Arby's parent company, Roark Capital Group, to sell Buffalo Wild Wings in its entirety for $2.9 billion.
But there was good news, too. Arby's had been struggling as well, and in 2013, a new CEO took over and instigated a series of changes. The result was impressive, and by 2016, Arby's was seeing record sales numbers. Those are the same hands that Buffalo Wild Wings passed into, so the hope was that Buffalo Wild Wings would turn around, as well.
Customers were immediately hopeful that they'd see some crossover, particularly between Arby's famous horsey sauce and the signature sauces of Buffalo Wild Wings. Sure enough, by early 2018 there was a crossover sauce ... but according to The Daily Meal, it was only available in three locations and just for a few days.
Buffalo Wild Wings tried to get into the pizza business
Pizza and wings go together like peanut butter and jelly, but when Buffalo Wild Wings decided to give pizza a shot, it didn't work out like it had hoped.
You don't remember the brand's pizza places? That's not surprising. According to Fast Casual, it started with two locations in Minnesota in 2014. The restaurants were called PizzaRev, and the idea was basically a sort of Chipotle of pizza. Customers built their own pizza from a series of around 30 toppings, then waited just three minutes while it was baked.
But not only were plans to open more restaurants put on hold three years after PizzaRev opened its doors, but Buffalo Wild Wings then announced in 2017 (via Bring Me The News) that the existing stores were going to be closing. The problem? Other chains — like Pie Five Pizza and Blaze Pizza — had the same idea at the same time. These companies found out quickly that it was possible to have too much of a good thing, and Pie Five Pizza also closed its Minnesota restaurants at about the same time.
A Buffalo Wild Wings was the site of a tragic death
In 2019, a Buffalo Wild Wings in Massachusetts was the site of a tragic accident. According to Chemical & Engineering News, it started when one employee spilled a chemical called Scale Kleen onto the floor. Later, another employee started to scrub the floor with a different cleaner, this one called Super 8. The combination of the two chemicals began to bubble and release toxic fumes. Customers and employees alike evacuated, but when the manager attempted to clean up the mess, he was overcome by the fumes. Manager Ryan Baldera was hospitalized, and later died.
So, what happened? The two cleaners were a mix of acid and bleach, and they combined to give off chlorine gas. That's some serious stuff — it was used as a chemical weapon during World War I, and when it hits the lungs, it creates an even more dangerous mix of chemicals including hydrochloric acid.
This isn't the only case of something like this happening, either. In 2017 alone, there were 2,284 cases of people being exposed to chlorine gas after mixing acid and bleach. Most restaurants give employees safety training, but accidents still occur, and sometimes, they're tragic.
Buffalo Wild Wings had a confusing ordering system
One of the basic rules of business is that when customers order, they should know exactly what they're ordering and what they can expect to get. Buffalo Wild Wings has had a chronic problem with that, and in 2020, it announced things were going to change.
Originally, customers could place their order for six, 10, 15, 20, or 30 wings. That's pretty straightforward. Then, it changed that ordering system to small, medium, and large. That's ... less-than-straightforward. The reason, says Restaurant Business, was that the wings they were getting varied in size, to the point where some patrons were feeling cheated by small wings. Orders started going out based on weight and sizes of wings, but when one person at the table gets 6 wings and another gets 8 — even though they ordered the same size — that's not going to sit well, either.
Customers were understandably unhappy, and Buffalo Wild Wings announced they were going back to the old way of ordering. They said: "... we verified everything we heard in the consumer research: Our guests prefer wing count. Of course, there will always be slight differences in weights, but our consumers told us they would prefer to have transparency when ordering."
Buffalo Wild Wings has had a massive problem with accusations of racism
In early 2019, a Buffalo Wild Wings location in Kansas found itself in the middle of some terrible headlines. According to The Kansas City Star, a former employee was suing after he was fired — an action that he says was taken after he reported discrimination and an unsafe, hostile work environment.
Former employee Gary Lovelace said that the work environment was "racially hostile," and that employees were regularly told to refuse some customers based on race, age, and disability. Lovelace reported the conditions that allegedly arrived with the hiring of a new general manager, and says he was fired for it, after working there for 12 years.
Just a few months later, the company was making headlines again. This time, Eater reported that it they had fired two managers at a location in Naperville, Illinois, after employees inquired about the race of a group of customers, and repeatedly tried to relocate them away from a group of regulars who did not want to sit near the black customers.
Then, in March 2020, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on an incident in which a Buffalo Wild Wings security guard — who didn't actually have a private security license, but did have a criminal case open against him — pepper-sprayed a man who walked in to place a to-go order. The customer, Najjar Abdullah Jr., filed a lawsuit for discrimination.
Buffalo Wild Wings is going after the millennial crowd
If you haven't been at a Buffalo Wild Wings lately, you'll find that when you go back, it looks a little different. That's because the company is giving the whole place an overhaul, and according to Business Insider, it's doing it in hopes of attracting a new, millennial crowd.
Inspire Brands CEO Paul Brown — the same person who turned Arby's around just a few years before — said BW3 was targeting millennial sports fans who liked to hang out with friends ... but found life getting in the way of that. "And as he's getting older and life gets more complicated, those moments that you can just go hang out with your friends get fewer and fewer," he explained of the ideal customer. Buffalo Wild Wings wants to be the go-to place.
March Madness has always been a big deal for the chain, and it was using the 2019 event to kick off its new advertising campaign, updated menus, new employee uniforms, and new image. It's aiming to be a favorite place to hang out with friends, have some drinks, eat some wings, and watch whatever sport happens to be in season.
One of the first changes is definitely geared toward courting millennials concerned about the environment. Gone are the plastic sauce containers and paper boats, and in are metal trays. That — and other changes — are made to create "the kind of atmosphere that the next generation of customer is looking for."
Buffalo Wild Wings is testing out a robotic chicken wing fryer
As of December 2021, Buffalo Wild Wings currently has more than 8,000 open restaurant positions across the country. If all goes as planned, some of those jobs will be filled not by people but by machines. In October, technology company Miso Robotics announced its new robotic chicken wing fryer, dubbed Flippy Wings, which will soon begin appearing in Buffalo Wild Wings kitchens. "Technology is making a fundamental impact on the end-to-end restaurant operational model," Paul Brown, CEO of the restaurant's parent company Inspire Brands, said in a statement. "Intelligent automation including AI and robotics will not only transform how we communicate with and take orders from our guests but also how we prepare and serve food to those guests. This transformation will ultimately result in improved efficiencies in our restaurants and an overall elevated experience for our guests and our team members."
The machine works by using artificial intelligence to identify food that has been dropped in a frying bin. It then picks up, cooks, and deposits the food into a hot holding area. Miso claims Flippy Wings increases food production speed by 10-20%. It also makes frying wings safer by eliminating hot touchpoints and decreasing oil spillage. The first machine was installed in the Inspire Brands Innovation Center test kitchen in Atlanta, Georgia. The next step is for the robot to work in the chain's ghost kitchen, Alliance Kitchen.
Buffalo Wild Wings angered sports fans in two different cities
Much of Buffalo Wild Wings' business is derived from sports fans coming in to watch the big name. So, they're not a demographic the chain wants to disappoint. But that's precisely what happened recently with fan bases in two different cities.
Following Major League Baseball's controversial punishment against the Houston Astros for cheating, Buffalo Wild Wings sent out a tweet in 2020 that read, "Our opinion is that Houston's apology will not impact their reception at away games." The restaurant doubled down the very next day. Responding to a tweet about Manchester City's soccer team being punished for cheating, Buffalo Wild Wings wrote, "THAT's how you punish a team that cheats." Clearly, this didn't go over well with the 3.2 million Houstonians, who let their feelings be known on social media. A small sampling of responses included "I go to your location around the corner from me about once a week....guess that ends today," and "Y'all can pack up and leave the H then.... y'all sure didn't mind the revenue those playoff games brought" (via KHOU).
Astros fans aren't the only ones unhappy with Buffalo Wild Wings. When Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen posted a photo of himself at the restaurant this summer, fans were none too pleased their star player wasn't supporting local wing joints in, of all places, the birthplace of the Buffalo wing. As one commentator put it, "Any real buffalonian knows Buffalo Wild Wings ain't it."
Sports betting is coming to a Buffalo Wild Wings near you
If you haven't noticed, the sports betting industry is booming, becoming increasingly more popular by the day. According to USA Today, more than $65 billion has been wagered on sports since 2018. So, it should come as no surprise that a sports-centric chain like Buffalo Wild Wings is trying to get in on the action — and that's precisely what's happening.
In September 2021, the restaurant company unveiled its partnership with MGM on a new, first-of-its-kind sports betting platform. No, Buffalo Wild Wings isn't turning into a casino and you won't be seeing any kiosks to place your bets. Instead, the restaurant now offers a free MGM betting game on its Blazing Rewards app where customers can place wagers on sports. Players can access the game anywhere but, if they win, must check into a Buffalo Wild Wings location between Thursday and Sunday of that week to claim their prize. In addition, players who are physically located inside a restaurant will be offered special promotions and bet types. "The conversation surrounding sports betting heated up very quickly," Buffalo Wild Wings president Lyle Tick told The Action Network. "Sports betting provides us with an opportunity to continue to build the community and engagement that is so much a part of what we do."
Buffalo Wild Wings sued pork producers over price fixing
Buffalo Wild Wings has more than 1,200 locations, each serving bacon-topped burgers and sandwiches. Needless to say, the chain goes through a lot of pork. So much so that even the tiniest price increase in price of pork would add up to big bucks. Therefore, when Buffalo Wild Wings believed that pork producers were conspiring to drive up the price of meat, the company took it quite seriously.
In November 2021, Buffalo Wild Wings, along with sister restaurants Sonic and Jimmy John's, sued several of the country's largest pork producers, including Smithfield, Tyson, Clemens Food Group, JBS USA, and Hormel. According to Restaurant Business Online, these companies account for 80% of the wholesale pork market. The lawsuit also included Agri Stats, a third-party pricing company. In the lawsuit, Buffalo Wild Wings alleges Agri Stats compiled reports based on data from the pork producers that included knowledge that "is not the type of information that competitors would provide to one another in a normal, competitive market." Essentially, Buffalo Wild Wings is saying the pork companies knew how much their competitors were producing and how much they were charging. With this knowledge, they were able to charge restaurants higher prices across the board, knowing they wouldn't be undercut by a competitor.
Buffalo Wild Wings' lawsuit isn't the first of its kind. In August 2021, McDonald's joined a similar suit against chicken producers originally filed in 2016 by restaurants including Chick-fil-A and Hooters.
A living rat once fell onto diners' table at a California Buffalo Wild Wings
When you think about terrible dining experiences at restaurants, ideas of overcooked food, excessive wait times, and awful service likely come to mind. Well, it turns out things can get much, much worse, as one Buffalo Wild Wings customer knows all too well.
In 2019, Alisha Norman was vacationing in southern California to celebrate her birthday. She and some friends headed to a local Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Women's World Cup. Before the group could even order, Norman heard a noise coming from above. Next thing she knew, a live rat had fallen from the ceiling directly onto her table. "I knew the rat was going to be injured because it hit like a Mack truck," Norman told NBC Los Angeles. "It was big." A manager came by and scooped up the rodent using two plates. "It was terrible," Norman recalled. "It was disgusting." The incident didn't stop her friends from ordering food, which was complimentary.
Buffalo Wild Wings claimed the ordeal was an isolated incident and blamed the rat's appearance on nearby construction. "The center where the restaurant is located is undergoing significant construction and we are confident it was directly related," the company said in a statement. Nonetheless, Buffalo Wild Wings closed the location temporarily for cleaning and sanitization.
Buffalo Wild Wings gave away 200 free televisions on Black Friday
Why let shopping malls and online retailers have all the fun on Black Friday? That was Buffalo Wild Wings' thinking in 2021 when it gave away 200 free 50-inch televisions during the long holiday weekend. "Black Friday weekend is poised to be one of the best sports-watching weekends of the year with big matchups across the college and professional ranks, so we're giving fans a reason to skip the long lines and head to Buffalo Wild Wings to catch all the action," Buffalo Wild Wings chief marketing officer Rita Patel said in a statement. "Now, fans can enter for a chance to win one of hundreds of brand-new TVs while still having the Greatest of All Times — spending time with friends, eating wings, drinking beer and watching sports."
To enter the contest, customers had to be members of Buffalo Wild Wings' rewards program Blazin' Rewards. Members earned one entry per day from Friday, November 26 through Monday, November 29 if they checked-in at a Buffalo Wild Wings location.
The chain partnered with a perfectly named professional athlete
What's a football game without some buffalo wings? And what's a buffalo wing without some sauce? Buffalo Wild Wings connected these dots to find the perfect new celebrity partner: Ahmad Gardner (via Inspire Brands). While he may not be a household name yet, he has two qualities that make him particularly appealing to Buffalo Wild Wings. First off, he's a professional football player. And not just any player: Gardner is a highly touted rookie for the New York Jets who was selected 4th overall in the 2022 draft. But it gets even better — Gardner's nickname, and what he's commonly called, is "Sauce."
Football plus sauce has proven to be a winning recipe for Buffalo Wild Wings, so partnering with Gardner was a no-brainer. As part of the deal, Buffalo Wild Wings introduced a limited-time new sauce, aptly dubbed "Sauce Sauce." "I have always known that everything is better with sauce, so who better to develop my own flavor than the sauce experts at Buffalo Wild Wings," Gardner said in a press release. "Nothing says football like wings covered in your favorite sauce. I am excited to launch my own signature 'Sauce Sauce' just in time for the season kickoff."
To take the promotion to the next level, Gardner held an autograph session. Instead of using a pen, however, the football star signed his name in his sauce. According to Buffalo Wild Wings, this was the first autograph signing of its kind.
Naked Chicken Tenders are your best bet for a healthy meal at Buffalo Wild Wings
Gameday food is rarely synonymous with healthy food. Everybody loves chicken wings, bacon cheeseburgers, and buffalo chicken tater tots — except your waistline. This can make finding a healthy meal at Buffalo Wild Wings a tough task. Tough, but not impossible. You just need to dig a little deeper into the menu.
Your safest choice for a "healthy" meal at Buffalo Wild Wings is likely the naked chicken tenders. According to the BWW nutrition guide, a five-piece order has 260 calories, 2 grams of fat, and 0 carbs (The meal comes with side dishes and sauce options which will more than double these totals if chosen).
If you're not in the mood for chicken, look towards the few vegetarian menu options. A small order of cauliflower wings has a reasonable 520 calories but does come with nearly 30 grams of fat and 60 grams of carbohydrates. The most nutritious burger option is the Southwestern black bean burger, which has the least amount of calories, fat, and cholesterol while also delivering a healthy 17 grams of fiber.
Blazin' Carolina Reaper Wings are the hottest wings you can order at Buffalo Wild Wings
Buffalo Wild Wings boasts an impressive list of 24 sauce and dry rub varieties. And while they all may be tasty, none are as hot as the Blazin' Carolina Reaper, which is made with a pepper that registers at more than 2 million Scoville units (via Buffalo Wild Wings).
For comparison, jalapeño and chipotle peppers are 3,500-10,000 Scoville units, tabasco peppers are 30,000-50,000, and the dreaded ghost pepper clocks in at roughly 850,000-1,000,000 (via FiveThirtyEight). To understand just how powerful the Carolina Reaper is, though, know that police pepper sprays have Scoville ranges starting at 2.5 million, not all that much higher than the Reaper.
For those willing to test their tastes buds' extremes, Buffalo Wild Wings offers the Blazin' Challenge, in which diners try to eat 10 Blazin' Carolina Reaper wings in less than five minutes without the aid of water or napkins. If successful, they get their name on the restaurant's Blazin' Wall of Fame. Lest you think this is a walk in the park, be warned that contestants need to sign a waiver in order to participate.
Buffalo Wild Wings is bringing back pizza
In an attempt to offer every type of gameday food, Buffalo Wild Wings is adding a popular sports bar item to its menu. In August, the chain announced that it is now offering pizza (via CNN).
"This an exciting new territory for us to enter as we continue to bring new and innovative ways to enjoy classic game day favorites at our sports bars," Buffalo Wild Wing's chief marketing officer Rita Patel said. "Buffalo Wild Wings is the ultimate football destination for a legendary gameday experience," Rita added in a press release. "With wings tossed in any of our 26 sauces and seasoning, 30-plus beer taps, wall-to-wall TVs, and now Boneless Bar Pizza, why would fans choose to go anywhere else?"
Buffalo Wild Wings previously sold flatbreads, but those pale in comparison to these ingredient-packed pizzas. The thin-crust pizzas, which are covered in boneless wings, come in two varieties: Buffalo and Honey BBQ. The former is topped with ranch dressing, bleu cheese crumbles, mozzarella cheese, pickled hot peppers, chopped green onion, and a healthy drizzle of medium buffalo sauce. The Honey BBQ's toppings are a delectable combination of mozzarella and cheddar jack cheese, bacon crumbles, pickled hot peppers, chopped green onion, and medium and honey BBQ sauce drizzles. Both varieties cost just $9.99.
Buffalo Wild Wings sells more than 2 billion wings every year
America's love of chicken wings is no secret, and that love has only grown in recent years. "Demand for chicken wings has been through the roof since the beginning of the pandemic," National Chicken Council spokesperson Tom Super said. "A shift from sit-down restaurants to takeout and quick service has boosted chicken wing consumption. Restaurants like wing joints and pizza places were built around takeout and delivery, and as long as people are sitting around watching TV and maybe drinking a beer, wings will remain in the game."
It's no wonder then that Buffalo Wild Wings sells so many chicken wings. Just how many wings, you ask? According to parent company Inspire Brands, Buffalo Wild Wings serves more than 2 billion wings each year across all of its restaurants.
That massive total is a difficult number to fully comprehend, so let's break it down into (slightly) more manageable terms. At a rate of 2 billion per year, Buffalo Wild Wings is selling nearly 5.5 million chicken wings per day, or 228,000 per hour. Put another way, serving 2 billion wings is the equivalent of giving every man, woman, and child in the country six wings each (via U.S. Census Bureau).
It once owned Rusty Taco
In 2014, the chicken chain got into the Mexican food business when it purchased a majority stake in Rusty Taco (via the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal). The fast-casual taco chain, named after founder Rusty Fenton, opened its first restaurant in Dallas in 2010 with the goal of offering authentic, affordable Mexican cuisine. By the time Buffalo Wild Wings came calling, Rusty Taco was still a small operation with only nine locations to its name. Yet its buyer believed the company was primed for substantial growth. "We really think [Rusty Taco] has legs and could become a national concept," Buffalo Wild Wings' chief strategy officer Kathy Benning said.
Part of the strategy to get to the national level was changing the chain's name. A year after being acquired, rusty Taco became R Taco (via Business Wire). "As we grow the business and expand beyond its Dallas roots, we wanted to ensure the concept name had broader appeal while still linking to the brand's heritage," said co-founder Steve Dunn. "Shortening the name to 'R Taco' still provides a link to co-founder Rusty Fenton's legacy while the phonetic play on 'R' sounding like 'our' is friendly and welcoming, like the spirit of the brand."
Neither the name nor ownership would last too long. In 2018, Buffalo Wild Wings, and in turn R Taco, was purchased by Inspire Brands, Inc. (via Nation's Restaurant News). Later that year, the chain returned to its original name of Rusty Taco.
Are Buffalo Wild Wings cooked fresh?
Quick-serve and fast-casual restaurants continue to use more and more fresh ingredients (via Restaurant Dive). This begs the question: Are Buffalo Wild Wings fresh or frozen? Unfortunately, the answer isn't entirely clear.
On Reddit, a Buffalo Wild Wings manager said the chain used frozen chicken to ensure the meat didn't go bad. "Our supplier has them frozen before we buy them. Think of raw chicken for a moment. It goes [bad] very, very quickly if you don't freeze it. The shelf life in the refrigerator is 5 days max for someone at home, and even then, that's being pretty risky. However, ours are thawed and drained before we cook them. Less moisture equals more crispness."
But Buffalo Wild Wings may have changed its ways over the years. More recently, when asked on Reddit what menu items are fresh, one cook claimed, "The only items that aren't frozen, are wings which are very fresh, and our produce." A Buffalo Wild Wings manager confirmed this, writing, "[boneless chicken wings] do still come in raw just like the traditional wings." While not speaking of wings specifically, that same manager did also shed light on the chain's food prep shift by confirming the switch to fresh chicken breasts. "We are definitely trying over the past year or so to have better quality food. We cook all of our chicken breasts fresh now as opposed to pre-cooked chicken we received when I first started working here."