Buffalo Wild Wings — Restaurant in Hickory

Tl;dr Terrible service. Wait times were excessive even with almost nobody there. Waited fifty minutes for hot wings, only to find out there were no hot wings. To make matters worse, our waitress had been aware of this for a long time without telling us. Also, TVs briefly stopped working during NFL playoff game. There were other minor issues, too.

I feel like I’m a pretty understanding person when it comes to stuff like this- but last night I had the worst experience I’ve had at a restaurant. I am from out of town and went with my nine- and ten-year-old daughters. My oldest loves hot wings, so this was a special treat after both had been competing in a long athletic tournament.

The place was nearly dead during NFL playoffs on a Sunday night, which should have clued me in to this place. But with younger siblings with a babysitter and bad weather coming in later back at home, I was hoping we had just lucked out and would be able to get in and out quickly. After waiting several minutes for seating (again, there were few customers so that was weird) we then waited quite a bit longer for our waitress to come over. When she finally did, she asked to take our drink and food orders at once (not normally how that’s done, but okay). She also told us that the “two minute drill” appetizer specials weren’t valid because the game had just ended. We had been there during the game’s two-minute warning, but it took forever to have our orders taken, so I didn’t love that si. She also asked if we would be ordering off the kids menu. “We didn’t get one,” I responded. The server just said “Oh. Well what do you want?”

The real kicker was the food situation. My youngest daughter ordered a burger. My oldest child and I were going to split 15 hot wings. Drinks and my youngest daughter’s burger came out fairly quickly. But the wings did not. We waited for wings for nearly twenty minutes after her food was delivered with our waitress only appearing briefly to talk to an acquaintance at a nearby table (there were few people it was easy to hear their conversation). While they were talking, we made eye contact. The waitress finally came over after wrapping up the discussion and said, “Your food will be out shortly.” We watched as presumably the one other server served the few folks who arrived after us. After a prolonged period, and my youngest totally finishing her food, I walked over to the other waitress who was exiting to the kitchen to try to figure out what was going on. At that point we had been there FIFTY MINUTES still without wings. She went back in the kitchen. While she did, the TVs cut off for a minute, much to the dismay of all customers. They came back online and the waitress reemerged. “Okay, so we’re out of hot sauce. Your server was told that and was supposed to come ask what you wanted instead. Did she ever do that?” She asked. “No - she literally just stopped by a while ago to tell us our food would be out shortly.” The server then said she would get her manager to sort out the situation. The manager told me the same story, about the waitress being told this when she put the order in with the kitchen, and being instructed to ask what we wanted instead. The manager then offered to take our order. “No, we’ve been waiting nearly an hour. My kid is done with her food. I appreciate it, but we really just want to go home. We’ve got a babysitter and younger siblings waiting for us. We really can’t wait another hour to maybe get food.” I said. “Okay, I’ll go ahead and cash you out. So it was just the burger, Sprite, lemonade and water? And it’s okay, I’ll take the wings off of here for you.” She asked. We paid and left. After such a terrible ordeal, I was really irked that the only remedy offered was not paying for an order never received. On the way out, the original waitress reappeared to talk to her friends at the table.

My little wing lover cried when we got in the car. We live way out in the boonies with few restaurants, and don’t get the opportunity to go sit down for a meal like this often. This was a big...

I have been hesitant to post a review of any restaurant since the restaurants opened back up after COVID lockdown and suffered through staffing issues. However, after my visit to my local BWW in Hickory, NC last night, I can no longer refuse to share my experience. This location has been terrible since reopening for dine in. Last night, 3 adults, a 5 yr. old and a 2 yr. old went for BOGO boneless wings. I was told the wait was 15 minutes, gave them my number, the text came in saying 15-20 minute wait and it was 40 minutes before we were finally seated. The 2 yr. old was getting restless while waiting and I went to see how much longer and was told "you are next and the long wait is because we don't have enough wait staff and only one person cooking. This has been a common occurrence since dine in reopened. We were seated and our drink order was finally taken. We assumed we'd better go ahead and order food while the waitress was there and did so. Three times I mentioned we had no forks or napkins. When the food finally started coming, the kids' came first - still no forks and napkins so I asked again. At one point another waitress walked by with a handful of napkins and I asked if I could have some because the 2 yr. old needed them asap and that waitress dropped me some. Then one adult meal came out and we asked for forks again. Later, my meal came out and still no forks. Finally the last meal came out, asked for forks again and finally received them. None of our orders were accurate. Ranch for the chicken tenders kid meals was asked for and honey mustard came out, I asked for a side of Blazin' sauce and didn't receive anything but one ranch dip (for 30 wings). The kids needed ranch, the adults needed more ranch, so we asked if the waitress could just bring a bunch of ranch and later we received two. There were issues with the bills as well. We got there before 6:30 and it was past 8:45 when I left. The larger group next to us, about 8 people, had been there since right after 5:00 and were just leaving prior to us. The only thing good about this location is Cathy and unfortunately she mainly (or always) works the take-out side. I have threatened multiple times that I am not going back to this restaurant and subjecting myself to the stress of eating out at this location but this time I think I...

I wish there was a zero star option. Bdubs used to be a good place to go especially in hickory on a Friday night. Well not anymore. We waited approximately 10 minutes at the door before someone even greeted us (which isn’t a big deal) then our waiter was cool at first he sat at the table when taking our order, we joked around a bit and all seemed well. Took 45 minutes for him to bring us first round of drinks, but not before he came back to ask us three different times. We finally had to grab someone to take our food order, it came pretty quick but we started to notice that other people that were sat after us were already finished eating and were getting ready to leave. They had different wait staff than us. I ordered 15 boneless wings with fries. Once the food came out there was no silverware, no napkins, we were completely out of drinks, the wings were hard as a rock with barely any sauce on them, no fries and I counted 11 on the plate. So I walked to the bar to order another drink and see about some silverware and there wasn’t anyone behind the bar for at least 10 minutes. By the time I got back my rocks were already cold and our waiter was nowhere to be seen. We also sat for at least 15-20 minutes before we seen any sort of wait staff to ask for our check. Two beers, 11 rocks (with plastic forks) and $38 later we were finally able to leave. I was still hungry as I was walking out because the food was inedible. One more thing I want to add, Friday night at 8:30 and IT WAS DEAD! Maybe six tables in the whole place and three people sitting at the bar. I can understand if this was the case on a super busy night, I work in retail and I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to wait times and service. But this was absolutely unacceptable. When I got my check I tried to ask for a manager to see if they could just remove the 15 wings and only charge me for 10 and I was told there wasn’t a manager on site. Once we stood up to walk out our waiter finally shows his face and strikes an attitude because there’s no tip. Needless to say, I won’t...