I managed to scoot through university by only going to a BWW once. This trip, I was told there was Friday night karaoke. Intrigued, I ventured out with friends to the Florence location.
First of all: smoking. The cloud of tobacco is pretty thick in this restaurant; it had my eyes watering and throat scratching. Hailing from Ohio, where smoking is not allowed in restaurants, this was quite an unpleasant change.
As our group was seated, no sooner did my bum touch the chair the waitress yelled in my ear, "What do you want?" She was referring to a beverage, but came across as brusque. Feeling rushed, I flipped through the menu looking for something alcoholic. I ordered a mango lemonade with gin.
What arrived was a pint of mango lemonade with a shot of gin on the side. Wow.
I tried to send it back and the waitress insisted there "wasn't a button for what you ordered, so this is how it was made." Double wow.
My friend ordered a Long Island, which the menu listed came with BWW's top shelf liquors: Beef Eater, Jose Cuervo, and Smirnoff. I laughed. Perhaps I spend too much time in OTR bars, but these brands I would consider house liquors, not top shelf.
When it was time to go, I had to walk up to our waitress and ask for the check. My bill arrived, but my dining companions' did not. We had to hunt her down again and she delivered another check. Two out of four of us now had bills... why not bring them all together!? We flagged her down a third time, got the rest of the checks, and paid. It took twenty minutes just to cash out.
My non-alcoholic drink (with the side of gin) totaled $7.00. They charged me $4.00 for the shot of Beefeater, which is almost the price of an entire bottle and the liquor store.
The lackluster service, poorly made drinks, and intense smoking environment reminded me why I stay away from BWWs.
This BWWs is one of the best I've been to in the NKY/Cincinnati area. We did our Fantasy Football draft at the Florence BWW's this year and we were treated very well, the service was fast, and the noise level was pretty decent for such a restaurant.
Overall, I've been to much, much worse locations of this chain restaurant, so I consider this location to always be a delicious option for lunch, dinner, or football-watching!
One of my favorite restaurants of all time is Buffalo Wild Wings, formerly known as "bw-3". Â That former name is also where the nickname "b-dubs" came from. Bw-3 stood for Buffalo Wild Wings & Weck. I'm not sure why they dropped the weck. Not only did they drop weck from their name, but they dropped weck from the menu. That's unfortunate because I really loved the Weck Burger. Weck was the bun they used on sandwiches. The crown of the bun was covered in salt and caraway seeds. It was very unique, especially in this part of the country. My favorite was a weck burger with wild sauce on it. Anyway...
I want to look back at how awesome b-dubs used to be. I'm not saying that it isn't any good these days, but I'm saying it was different back in the day, better. It's now a big, corporate money making machine. It used to have some soul. Normally I'd be happy that a company with local roots made it big, but not these guys. They've all but disowned their local roots. Their headquarters, which used to be located upstairs from their Clifton location, is now a big corporate affair in Minneapolis. On their current website, there's no mention of the former headquarters and in fact, they make it seem like it's always been based in Minneapolis.
Back in the early to mid 90's when I first started eating at b-dubs, it had such a unique vibe to it, kinda like Chipotle had when it was new. It was no-frills, great, reasonably priced food. They even had the plain brown napkins a decade before Chipotles did. On Tuesdays they offered 20¢ wings. That was 5 for a dollar in case you're bad at math like me. That's 100 wings for $20. It was hard to beat that deal, especially considering how good the food was. We didn't dine-in much back in the day. My mom picked up her paychecks on Tuesdays in Clifton and she'd bring us wings home. We got spoiled, quick. Every Tuesday for years, we'd have bw-3. Slowly over time the wing prices would jump, just like the cost of a postage stamp. It went up to 25¢, then 30¢, then 35¢, ugh... now its 45¢. A 100 wings that used to cost $20, now costs $45. That's 225% higher! That's not to mention the inflated prices on the Buffalo Chips, the burgers which you can't even get on weck anymore. Sigh... Oh and the plain brown napkins are gone too.
Remember when you could go inside a bw-3, order your food at the counter and they'd call your name when your order was ready? How awesome was that?? Now, they seat you, stick you with a waiter or waitress, your drink refills are at their convenience, when you used to have access to the self-serve fountain. Bullshit! I miss old-school b-dubs! I don't want to have to tip some dumb-fuck that don't even know what weck is.
All I'm saying is that I miss bw-3. They get my business about twice a year now. Bring back the weck burger and I'm there at least once a month. I'd like to meet the marketing guy that decided to drop the weck from the name and the menu.
Small party to send off a friend who will be leaving for the Army. Â The tables easily convert to group together. Â You get to pick your sauce on the wings and the dipping sauce. Â I went mild and ranch. Â AWESOME! Â I see why they are famous. Â
I do wish they had Happy Hour prices on drinks like Mojitos ($6 glass).
Servers did a good job too.
Big chain, big disappointment. Â I have been to this location a couple of times, both times were after work happy hours, with the location chosen mostly to appease the smokers in the group. Â If I go back again, it will probably be for that same reason, there are too many other options around town to put up with smoke and a bad beer selection.
I have no complaints with the food, it is standard sports bar fare and does nothing to stand out from other similar places. Â They seem to draw more people than they have parking for, at least during happy hour periods it can be difficult to find a parking spot.
Maybe I have become spoiled on a couple of counts, having grown up in Wisconsin, there was always smoking in bars and restaurants, but after 4 years of smoke free public areas in Florida and now the same in Ohio, I find that I do not want to subject myself to smoke. Now maybe there is a "non-smoking" section inside and we just were not in it, due to the smokers in the group, but the whole non-smoking section thing is a fallacy anyway. Â However, this location is in Kentucky, where smoking is allowed, so enough whining about that.
Now on to whining about something much closer to my heart: the beer selection here is very disappointing. Â When Guinness is the exotic choice on the beer menu, something is lacking. Â I understand carry the mainstream Miller and Budweiser brands, but there is such a rich beer tradition in this area and you have no Morlein, Rivertown, Mt Carmel or even Hudy options, shame on you. Â I was encouraged to see one of my favorites, Wisconsin brewed, Leinenkugel's Classic Amber on the menu, but when I asked for a pint, was told, "Uh, I don't think we have that, what is your second choice?" Â Well BW3, you are my second choice, to whatever other option is offered.
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