Buffalo Wild Wings — Restaurant in Holly Springs

It's official that my family and I will not be returning to this location ever again - but we're seriously considering to boycott the restaurant altogether since we've noticed a decline ever since they were bought out but another corporation.

We've come to this location maybe once a month or so because my husband loves wings and he enjoys the various options for sauces here. However, everytime we come, the restaurant seems to be perpetually short staffed and dirty. I was a long-time hostess, turned server, turned supervisor for similar fast-casual style restaurants and I know there is a formulaic way to run an establishment, both for customer satisfaction and for health and safety.

I digress, the reason we've decided from our last visit we won't be coming back is because it was in the worst state we have seen it in to where we couldn't ignore it any longer. Here is the sequence of things we experienced on our last visit (but these things have not been isolated incidents);

We arrive and a sign tells us to seat ourselves. It was lunch time, but it was also a busy holiday weekend. A hostess would have been able to sit tables so that servers wouldn't get overwhelmed but for some reason, I never see a hostess there.

It wasn't incredibly busy despite the holiday - there were some tables outside on the patio and maybe 7 tables inside. However, about half of the tables had trash, trays of half-eaten food, drink cups, and napkins strewn about.

We try to sit where there weren't so many dirty tables and waited. It took around 12 minutes to be greeted. The server was very nice initially (I'm going to keep his name anonymous because I don't think he is the problem, rather, he is just trained poorly) and got our drinks (in to-go cups because they were all out of regular cups, even though I could count at least 20 cups left on the dirty tables for 20+ minutes) about five minutes after he greeted us. I did end up having to get to the server station and grab our own straws since he forgot to hand them to us. No sweat.

The food took around 45 minutes to come out. We had ordered an appetizer but it never came. The server was nice enough to say that he'd still bring it out but he would comp it from our bill. The food was made wrong though. My husband wanted two sauces but only got one. At that point, he was so hungry, he didn't want to complain. However, my 10 year old daughter ordered chipotle seasoning on her fries but they gave her DESERT HEAT instead. Trying to be a good sport, she didn't want to complain or cause the server more anxiety so she tried to eat them slowly without letting us know.

The runner who dropped off the refired appetizer apologized for the food but ten tried to retract the offer to comp it from the bill. He said something akin to, "Uh, well, if it bothers you that much, we can take it off but... ya know." ... Rude. We never asked for it to be taken off. It was offered to us and then subsequently not.

The process of leaving was fine enough, we pay and then get back to the car. However, my 10 year old starts crying because she no longer had water like she did at the table and her mouth was still burning from the desert heat seasoning they put on her food. My husband then tries to go back in and grab her cup, which you guessed it, was still on the table because no one cleans up! The cup was near empty so my husband asked our server to fill it up again. As my husband says, the server looked at him like he sprouted a second head and said that we couldn't do that because we had already left and so we'd now need to pay for water. Pay for water from a cup with a lid you had already given us??

So yeah, absolutely will NOT be returning. I am hoping our server can find another job where he can be properly trained with a...

I took my family here last night, we got to the restaurant around 645pm and were seated by 7pm. This was not bad considering it was Friday, but we did chose to sit outside since the weather was so warm and they said we would be seated sooner. However, from that point everything went down hill. I can understand restaurants being busy on Friday nights, but this place was either under staffed or the waitresses just really couldn't do their job. There was a table of about 20 high school kids with one who kept setting off his car alarm off since it was next to the patio. The waitress said she was going to get the manager to address it and that never happen. I noticed that the table with the high school students was the only one being taken care of although there were already 4 or 5 tables on the patio that had families, some with children, waiting to order who had been there for some time before my family. Total time from seating to ordering was an hour, the waitress waited to clear out the large table of students first before ever getting to any of these other tables, including ours. After we were finally able to order the food took about 30 minutes to get to the table, but it was hot so this was likely due to how busy it was. Our order ended up being the wrong sauces/flavors and had to be corrected, but one part was not even entered. The waitress just told me I didn't place the order, so she put it in immediately. This could be correct, and I can take partial responsibility, but I have never been to a place where the waitress didn't make sure the number of orders and the number of people at the table didn't match. Still the waitress was very slow and hard to get a hold of during our visit, drinks were often empty and attention to our needs were very poor. We even had extra charges on our ticket for items we didn't order that had to be removed.

On the way out of the business I did run into the Manager and stopped him to discuss the issues. He told me he was never told about the issue with the car alarm being set off or he would have asked the kids to leave, nor was he ever notified that the outside dining area was not being taken care of or asked to see anyone out there. However, even when people complained not only to the waitress but also to the employees with "Captain" on their white jersey's the management did know? His excuse was that he was in the kitchen with another manager, but did give me the usual manager spill that it was by far not an excuse for the service. Sounds like no one is doing their job here.

I understand that people will comment about how great this place is on the day they go, and a lot of people may have better experiences when they go to this business depending on other factors. I can say that I will not go to this place again because it is obvious to me that it is not being managed correctly and the employees are not likely suited for the line of work they are in. I would never recommend going to a place where you pay a premium for the food but get "hit or...

Update on my previous review: Visited this location on Sunday September 14. Where oh where has our Casey gone? We walked in and asked to sit in the bar. Hostess said pick a table I will follow you. There was a table with dirty dishes and we asked if it could be cleaned so we could sit there. She said I don't that's up to the waitress. Why can't the hostess clean the table? So we sat at a table for 8 (there were only 3 of us). Server approached and said I'll be with you in a minute. We said, we'd like to sit at that table. He said, I'll be back in a few. Few minutes go by. We see 3 people hanging out at the corner of the bar chatting and I wondered why they couldn't clean the table. Another server approached and we said the same and she cleaned the table. We moved. Yet another server arrived to take our order. We ordered drinks. Next we ordered an appetizer that took 45 minutes to arrive at the table after the waitress announced twice that they were plating it. It arrived luke warm. That being said we ordered our food as we didn't want to wait another 45 minutes for wings. The food arrived timely and was good. The overall condition of the restaurant seemed unkept and dirty. Bathrooms were overflowing with paper towels. Certainly not the same B Dubs we are used to. Casey was the bomb.

Placed a review one week ago and was told to go to their page and fill out the form. I did. 3 days later I received this: Dear Sally Kennedy,

Thank you for contacting us at Buffalo Wild Wings.

We appreciate your patience while we are experiencing longer than usual response times due to COVID-19. We apologize for the unsatisfactory service that you experienced at our location and thank you for taking the time to alert us of your concerns. We take feedback of this nature very seriously and it will be addressed as soon as possible.

If you requested contact, please allow 3-5 business days for a response. It is our hope that you will give us another opportunity to provide you with both fantastic service and great food in the future.

Sincerely, Buffalo Wild Wings Guest Relations

Please note: Please do not reply to this email. This inbox is not monitored.

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