Not every aspect of working at Buffalo Wild Wings is perfect, but employees do report
the job can be fun. Whether you're looking for a job or you're just curious about the
lives of the folks who serve wings, this is what it's like to work at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Like so many restaurants, when it comes to serving jobs at Buffalo Wild Wings, it's all
about the tips. How well a server does with tips can depend on a number of factors, but
working at a restaurant where patrons often spend three hours or more watching sports
certainly helps.
Multiple orders of food and drinks are common, and employees at Buffalo Wild Wings report
that overall, the money can be really good.
Jen Benson, who worked at the restaurant for three years, told Quora:
"The cash is great! Tickets are pretty high since the food can be a little pricey, so
the tips generally reflect that."
As for how much a server can expect to make, that can vary wildly depending on location,
time of shift, and rapport with customers. However, one former employee said it wasn't
uncommon to make $300 working a seven-hour shift.
Of course, not every job at Buffalo Wild Wings is based on tips. Indeed reports that as of
August 2020, cooks made an average of $11.84 per hour, while managers made an annual salary
anywhere from around $49,000 to $67,000.
Money may be a huge factor when it comes to why a person takes a job, but co-workers and
atmosphere can play a significant role in job satisfaction, too. Nobody wants to work
at a restaurant — or any business — where they're surrounded by miserable jerks.
Thankfully, if you take a job at Buffalo Wild Wings, there's a good chance you'll work with
some fun folks and may even make a few long-lasting friendships.
Longtime Buffalo Wild Wings employee Rebecca Lee said that she thought of her coworkers
and managers like family and that it was unlike any other job she'd had. She said:
"I left Buffalo Wild Wings for a year to work in another restaurant, and while I did enjoy
working with certain individuals, I missed my Bdubs family."
The level to which employees enjoy the job and how well they get along with their coworkers
is going to vary depending on the location. One former employee said, quote, "never again"
and blamed the high turnover of employees on managers who poorly managed their staff.
If you're thinking about applying for a job at your local Buffalo Wild Wings, perhaps
scout it out first and pay attention to how well the staff gets along with one another.
Buffalo Wild Wings has never boasted that it's a farm-to-table restaurant where everything
but the salt is made in-house. Still, it's not unreasonable for customers to expect that
at least a majority of the restaurant's food is actually made in the kitchen.
Truth be told, there's very little cooking that goes on in the kitchen — other than
dropping things in a deep-fryer. If you can operate a microwave, you may just have what
it takes to cook at Buffalo Wild Wings.
When asked about what's actually made in the restaurant's kitchen, one manager said:
"Very little actually. We microwave diced chicken which goes into the grilled wraps
and buffalitos."
While restaurants like Five Guys may brag about their never-frozen beef, don't expect
to find it at Buffalo Wild Wings — burgers and boneless wings apparently arrive prepackaged
and frozen.
On the bright side, a cook said the bone-in wings are not frozen and are actually, quote,
"very fresh." The downside is depending on how busy the restaurant is, food could be
sitting under a heat lamp for 25 minutes before making it to the customer's table.
Considering that other than slicing up some produce, there's not too much prep work happening
in the Buffalo Wild Wings kitchen, it should be pretty boring, right?
Well, yes, but some aspects of the prep process might still be a bit gross to employees who
are new to the Buffalo Wild Wings kitchen. At the very least, it could make a person
reconsider what they order off the menu.
Because a lot of the food is already frozen, it needs to thaw before being cooked. Back
when Buffalo Wild Wings served ribs, those ribs had to sit and thaw in a, quote, "gelatinous
casing," confessed a former cook.
You'll no longer find ribs on the Buffalo Wild Wings menu, but even still, employees
will have the curtain pulled back on those famous wings in a way they may not be ready
for. That same cook said that while they never found any severed chicken heads mixed in with
the wings they did find the occasional wing with feathers still on it.
Thankfully, those wings never made their way to the deep-fryer and were tossed in the garbage.
For wing fans looking to live on the edge, the restaurant has created the Blazin' Challenge:
a culinary battle of will that challenges guests to eat 12 of the hottest wings in just
six minutes. The wings are coated in Blazin' sauce, which measures in at a tongue-melting
350,000 Scoville units — 60 times hotter than a jalepeño.
NFL star Rob Gronkowski did the challenge in June 2020 and described his experience
as being pretty brutal.
He said:
"My face is on fire, my head is on fire. My eyes are on fire, too."
Buffalo Wild Wings employees know all too well the repercussions that can come with
the Blazin' Challenge and have seen customers pay the price.
"Wow, you loved those wings. Were they hot enough for you?"
"No way! Not even close!"
One employee described the aftermath of a customer who threw in the towel before rushing
to the bathroom, and as you might expect, the results weren't pretty.
Another employee said:
"[I] witnessed a 230-pound bodybuilder cry because they [the wings] were too hot."
Whether it's ordering a burger with customized toppings at Five Guys or a perfectly cooked
filet mignon at a steakhouse, diners can be pretty picky with their food. Employees at
Buffalo Wild Wings can attest that the restaurant's customers like their wings a variety of ways
and aren't afraid to specify just how their wing order should be prepared.
"Lemme ask you something. How hard is your job? How intelligent do you have to be to
take a food order?"
One cook said it's not uncommon for customers to complain that their wings are either not
crispy enough or don't have enough sauce on them. Either way, the cook said that it can
be frustrating because when too much sauce is added, those once-crispy wings tend to
get soggy.
Another Buffalo Wild Wings worker said their restaurant often gets orders for plain wings
with different sauces on the side. This sort of order can be annoying and tedious for the
kitchen staff. Regardless of whether those grievances are justified, picky wing orders
just come with the territory for the Buffalo Wild Wings kitchen staff.
Aside from a regular paycheck and sneaking a peek at whatever game is playing on the
several TVs, there have to be some perks to working at Buffalo Wild Wings, right? Well,
if you're a fan of wings, then you'll appreciate that employees get to sample the menu.
Buffalo Wild Wings employee Stephanie Mccoy-Carter said the company wants its servers to be familiar
with the food offerings in case customers have a question. She explained:
"They're going to make you try the hottest sauce they have so that you can explain it
better to customers."
While employees do get a discount on food, this doesn't mean that they can snack on wings
and fries at their leisure.
As for meal discounts, employees on Indeed report some variation from store to store.
While some employee reviews give the impression of a free meal with every shift, others said
it was a 50 percent discount during shifts and 25 percent discount when not working.
Some reviews also said that free meals were only for management or employees who had won
a contest.
Working in a restaurant is messy. Even if you're not in the kitchen slicing, dicing,
and cooking over a stove — or in Buffalo Wild Wings case, popping stuff in the microwave
— you'll get dirty.
There are constantly going to be spills and messes to clean up, and with wing sauce involved,
it's a 100 percent guarantee an employee's uniform is going to get pretty nasty. As new
employees at Buffalo Wild Wings quickly find out, they'll need to either account for washing
that uniform every day or buying extras.
A Buffalo Wild Wings cook said:
"The first jersey or shirt they give you is complimentary. After that, you pay six dollars
for a cook shirt and nine dollars for the server's jersey. They just take it out of
your check."
While the cook said the quality of the uniforms wasn't bad, they added that they ultimately
bought eight of them, simply because of how dirty each one got on during shift.
Aspiring Buffalo Wild Wing employees will be happy to know that snagging a job at the
restaurant isn't too difficult. You could certainly walk into your local Buffalo Wild
Wings and apply in-person, but Buffalo Wild Wings's parent company, Inspire Brands, makes
it even easier and allows job seekers to scroll through open positions and apply via their
website.
Indeed offers a fair amount of insight into what the interview process is like at Buffalo
Wild Wings, and the wait time for getting a response after applying can vary from a
few hours to a couple of days.
More than one employee said they were interviewed over the course of several days. Meanwhile,
some employees said their interview lasted only around five minutes.
It's worth acknowledging that depending on the position a person applies for, some interviews
are going to be more detailed than others. Obviously, Buffalo Wild Wings is going to
have a few more questions when hiring a general manager versus hiring a dishwasher.
Most employees on Indeed said that after their interview process, they were called within
about a week and offered the job.
Not only do potential employees not have to jump through endless hoops to land a job with
Buffalo Wild Wings, but once they do get hired, there's room to move up if they work hard.
One Buffalo Wild Wings manager said they started out with the restaurant as a cook and were
offered the management promotion three times before finally accepting.
Former Buffalo Wild Wings employee Jen Benson was with the company for three years and said
that in addition to the flexible schedule and money, the ability to advance was a plus.
Benson explained that servers often move from bartender to shift leader and eventually manager.
And she said:
"If you stay and work hard, you'll move up."
Overall, Buffalo Wild Wings has a 3.1 out of five on Indeed when it comes to job security
and advancement, and numerous reviews tout the company's reputation for promoting its
workers.
One Indiana employee said of the restaurant chain:
"The company truly cares about your career and where you want to go."
It should really go without saying that if you want a job that's chill and low-stress,
Buffalo Wild Wings isn't for you. Anybody who has ever walked into the place on a Sunday
afternoon during football season knows that the restaurant is full of energy, with servers
constantly dodging one another and guests as they rush orders out of the kitchen.
Just like any busy restaurant that caters to sports fans, working at Buffalo Wild Wings
can be especially tiring.
Numerous reviews on Indeed said that working at the restaurant was hectic, busy, and fast-paced.
Some employees seemed to enjoy this, while others said it was simply too stressful.
That sort of busy and bustling environment might not be everyone's cup of tea, but in
a job where tips often make up the bulk of an employee's earnings, a busy shift is always
going to be better than a slow one.
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