Buffalo Wild Wings at Crenshaw Plaza
My friends have been talking about this place and I'm seeing the commercials and I really wanted to go. Last night I went with a couple of my friends to try it out. When I walked in I was amazed at how shiny it was! Huge flat screen TV's everywhere showing everything from poker to basketball to baseball, music was loud, video games on some of the tables and some arcade golf and bowling games on the wall, a huge bar with like 100 different beers...It was exactly how I thought it would be and that was awesome! I took a look at the menu and it had a lot of great-sounding food like ribs, chicken strips, and of course the wings, that had about 20 different kinds of sauce.
Me and my friends were seated on a table near the bar and right on the side of all the TV's so we could basically see the whole resturant. This being in the Crenshaw area i expected a certain type of people, but suprisingly I only could make out maybe 3 people who were just angry for no reason. everyone was chatting with friends, having a good time, laughing, watching TV, etc. Up to this point I was very happy that a place like this opened in this area; it was something we needed.
25 minutes passed and our waitress finally came to take our drink orders. I didn't notice the time it took because we were still kind of dazzled by the whole experience. one friend went to go play the bowling game. I tried to talk with my other friend but it turns out...the music was REALLY LOUD. I even couldn't hear the waitress when she talked, and we had to basically yell over everything to get our order. I got the ribs and chicken tender combo and my friend ordered the wings with mango habanero sauce. Again the food took a pretty long time to get to us, and the dazzle was starting to wear us out. we were kind of tired of the super loud noises but the TV's were still taking our attention.
So the food arrives. I take a pick of my fries and notice they are lukewarm. Like, room temperature. not hot, not crispy at all. But that's ok because I still believe in this place! So I grab a rib and they are also cold and theres pretty much no BBQ sauce on them. They taste alright enough, but I only got 4 (not even a half-rack). I'm a little dissapointed at this point but that's still ok! So I have a chicken tender and dunk it in the Spicy garlic sauce. The spicy garlic sause is REALLY garlicky, and not in a good way. There is a difference between real garlic and powerdered garlic, and this sauce is tasting like it was just drowned in garlic powder and Frank's Red Hot sauce. I try a chicken tender without the dipping sauce next, and it turns out they are dry and lukewarm as well I got about 6 tenders of varying length but not surpassing 3 inches (so i guess they are chicken nubs). They were all dry and felt like they were sitting under a heat lamp for an hour.
My friend offers one of his habanero mango wings, and While I do like the sauce, the chicken wing itself was really dry. At this point, every single thing i've eaten has been bad, and the noise is really loud, and I'm losing faith. I mean this is friday night, surely there must be a mistake right? I think it's a fluke. I ordered a mixed drink (some lemonade thing) and it's pretty good at least.
Then our reciept comes with tip reccomendations of over 25%. Hold the damn phone. For a $20 meal they want me to tip 5.25? Gratuity at a FINE resturant is 18%. Our meal was 28 bucks, and the waitress forgot to add our friend's soda. As a customer i don't mind that (less money for me!) but it's not very good if they miss things off the bill. Whatever. I reach into my pocket but...WAIT.
THERE ARE NO NAPKINS.
I've been eating ribs and chicken wings and there are no napkins. We look around all the other tables and there are also no napkins. So now me and my friends are dumbfounded. How do you have a place like this with no napkins? Turns out they have wet-naps in a sugar container at the table, but no regular dry napkins. So we ask our server for some, and she says that she's going on break and her substitute will get our napkins. Well fine. We get the napkins and they are those fall-apart-instantly napkins that you can't really wipe your hands with becuase they are made out of tissue or something. So I have to use my water cup to pre-wet my hands so I can just brush them off.
~~~DEALBREAKER~~~
So I take the receipt up to the front of the resturant, and the nice girl Stephanie tells me I pay my server. I go back to the table and give the server the reciept and my card, and She comes back with all of it and says leave it on the table and she will get it (like a regular resturant does). I walk with my friends out the door and apparently nice girl Stephanie asked if I paid or not. My friend (who was talking to her) says yes, and we leave. Then a security guard (resturants need security guards in Crenshaw) calls us out and wants to chat. He says nice girl Stephanie claims I didn't pay the bill and it needs to be settled, because if we dont pay then the server has to pay. I'm looking at him like...What? She told me to pay at the table so I went and paid at the table! But that's not enough and now a bunch of people are looking at me like I'm a scumbag so now I'm scared because someone might have stolen my reciept from the table with my signature on it and now I'll have to double pay or something.
Nope, it was still there. So how does nice girl Stephanie even know or care how I paid when she tells me I don't pay her? I grab the reciept and slam it down in front of her and just walk out.
I came to this place 100% bought into the hype. I was ready to sing the praises of Buffalo Wild Wings and take all my friends there. The service, the food, and the attitude of the people here were all terrible, and I don't even know how you can be so bad of a resturant that you can go from LOVE to HATE within 2 hours. It takes a special kind of bad to do that, and that's what this place is. Bad.
Me and my friends were seated on a table near the bar and right on the side of all the TV's so we could basically see the whole resturant. This being in the Crenshaw area i expected a certain type of people, but suprisingly I only could make out maybe 3 people who were just angry for no reason. everyone was chatting with friends, having a good time, laughing, watching TV, etc. Up to this point I was very happy that a place like this opened in this area; it was something we needed.
25 minutes passed and our waitress finally came to take our drink orders. I didn't notice the time it took because we were still kind of dazzled by the whole experience. one friend went to go play the bowling game. I tried to talk with my other friend but it turns out...the music was REALLY LOUD. I even couldn't hear the waitress when she talked, and we had to basically yell over everything to get our order. I got the ribs and chicken tender combo and my friend ordered the wings with mango habanero sauce. Again the food took a pretty long time to get to us, and the dazzle was starting to wear us out. we were kind of tired of the super loud noises but the TV's were still taking our attention.
So the food arrives. I take a pick of my fries and notice they are lukewarm. Like, room temperature. not hot, not crispy at all. But that's ok because I still believe in this place! So I grab a rib and they are also cold and theres pretty much no BBQ sauce on them. They taste alright enough, but I only got 4 (not even a half-rack). I'm a little dissapointed at this point but that's still ok! So I have a chicken tender and dunk it in the Spicy garlic sauce. The spicy garlic sause is REALLY garlicky, and not in a good way. There is a difference between real garlic and powerdered garlic, and this sauce is tasting like it was just drowned in garlic powder and Frank's Red Hot sauce. I try a chicken tender without the dipping sauce next, and it turns out they are dry and lukewarm as well I got about 6 tenders of varying length but not surpassing 3 inches (so i guess they are chicken nubs). They were all dry and felt like they were sitting under a heat lamp for an hour.
My friend offers one of his habanero mango wings, and While I do like the sauce, the chicken wing itself was really dry. At this point, every single thing i've eaten has been bad, and the noise is really loud, and I'm losing faith. I mean this is friday night, surely there must be a mistake right? I think it's a fluke. I ordered a mixed drink (some lemonade thing) and it's pretty good at least.
Then our reciept comes with tip reccomendations of over 25%. Hold the damn phone. For a $20 meal they want me to tip 5.25? Gratuity at a FINE resturant is 18%. Our meal was 28 bucks, and the waitress forgot to add our friend's soda. As a customer i don't mind that (less money for me!) but it's not very good if they miss things off the bill. Whatever. I reach into my pocket but...WAIT.
THERE ARE NO NAPKINS.
I've been eating ribs and chicken wings and there are no napkins. We look around all the other tables and there are also no napkins. So now me and my friends are dumbfounded. How do you have a place like this with no napkins? Turns out they have wet-naps in a sugar container at the table, but no regular dry napkins. So we ask our server for some, and she says that she's going on break and her substitute will get our napkins. Well fine. We get the napkins and they are those fall-apart-instantly napkins that you can't really wipe your hands with becuase they are made out of tissue or something. So I have to use my water cup to pre-wet my hands so I can just brush them off.
~~~DEALBREAKER~~~
So I take the receipt up to the front of the resturant, and the nice girl Stephanie tells me I pay my server. I go back to the table and give the server the reciept and my card, and She comes back with all of it and says leave it on the table and she will get it (like a regular resturant does). I walk with my friends out the door and apparently nice girl Stephanie asked if I paid or not. My friend (who was talking to her) says yes, and we leave. Then a security guard (resturants need security guards in Crenshaw) calls us out and wants to chat. He says nice girl Stephanie claims I didn't pay the bill and it needs to be settled, because if we dont pay then the server has to pay. I'm looking at him like...What? She told me to pay at the table so I went and paid at the table! But that's not enough and now a bunch of people are looking at me like I'm a scumbag so now I'm scared because someone might have stolen my reciept from the table with my signature on it and now I'll have to double pay or something.
Nope, it was still there. So how does nice girl Stephanie even know or care how I paid when she tells me I don't pay her? I grab the reciept and slam it down in front of her and just walk out.
I came to this place 100% bought into the hype. I was ready to sing the praises of Buffalo Wild Wings and take all my friends there. The service, the food, and the attitude of the people here were all terrible, and I don't even know how you can be so bad of a resturant that you can go from LOVE to HATE within 2 hours. It takes a special kind of bad to do that, and that's what this place is. Bad.