Buffalo Wild Wings Would Rather Lose A Customer Than Make A Subsitution

Reader Dan begs our pardon for not having a more egregious complaint, but would like to share his irritation at Buffalo Wild Wings refusal to substitute breaded chicken tenders for naked ones. Lest you assume that Dan was asking for something unreasonable, he writes:

Now keep in mind I wasn’t asking them to scrape bread off my tender or invent some new, exotic expensive dish. I was asking them to just toss in the 4 naked tenders they sell on the menu instead of the breaded ones. I think we can see where this is going. The waitress told me they can’t do that. I was dumbfounded because this seemed like such an easy request. I asked her why and she said the cook can’t do substitutions.

Buffalo Wind Wings stood firm. Dan was not allowed to have naked tenders with his combo, forcing him to purchase less food and resulting in less money for Buffalo Wild Wings. Read his entire email inside.

Dan writes:

Hi guys,

In the grand scheme of things, this is no big deal. It’s not as though InfoUsa is stealing my pension and forcing me to live on dog food or a douchebag at Lycos is erasing all my email but it’s still a fucking irritant to say the least.

I went to a Buffalo Wild Wings in Indianapolis last Wednesday for dinner. The $10.95 ribs and chicken tender combo looked tasty so I wanted that. However, I’m carb conscious and wanted my tenders naked (without breading) which is fantastic since BW3 sells those right on the menu next to the regular breaded tenders for the same price. So I ordered my combo and asked the waitress to substitute the 4 breaded tenders for 4 naked ones. Now keep in mind I wasn’t asking them to scrape bread off my tender or invent some new, exotic expensive dish. I was asking them to just toss in the 4 naked tenders they sell on the menu instead of the breaded ones. I think we can see where this is going. The waitress told me they can’t do that. I was dumbfounded because this seemed like such an easy request. I asked her why and she said the cook can’t do substitutions. I pointed out they sell naked tenders for the same price, can’t he just cook those instead of the breaded ones. She said no again, but I held firm and asked her to check, since there seemed to be a huge lapse in logic here. So she left for 10 minutes (TEN MINUTES!) and returned and said “they” whoever “they” is told her that can’t be done. Since I was famished enough to eat the menu (which turned out to be more flavorful then the naked tenders) I ordered the 6 piece naked tender for $5.95. So they in essence gave up an extra $5 sale to give me 1/2 of the order I originally wanted!!

I can understand if naked tenders didn’t exist on the menu or they were more expensive (although I would have paid the premium) to substitute, but there was no reason why they “CAN’T” substitute, rather they “CHOSE” not to do it, and in turn lost $5 and a customer for life.

Dan

So sad and unnecessary. —MEGHANN MARCO

(Photo: Wikipedia)

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