We had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings bar and grill in West Covina on Monday, January 4, 2010, the first business day of the new year. It’s a new branch of a national chain that was started by a group of people from Buffalo, NY. We had first seen signs for it in late November or early December 2009. It’s on Workman Ave. right off Citrus Ave. and right near the border with the city of Covina in a shopping center built during the past couple of years. We drive by it when we go to church that, incidentally, involves crossing the Covina/West Covina border twice since the church is in Covina. We learned from their website that Buffalo Wild Wings is a national chain and the next closest branch is in Chino Hills. The West Covina branch had its grand opening on Tuesday, December 22, 2009. We had considered going then, but had a family dinner at Pho Super Bowl scheduled for that day (see earlier review).
Our next plan was to try Buffalo Wild Wings on Wednesday, December 30 or New Year’s Eve Eve. Since it had opened we had noticed that the parking lot for the shopping center was always full or nearly full. However, I had to go to work early on Thursday, December 31, so I didn’t want to have to wait too long to get a table. After I got home from work on Wednesday we drove to Buffalo Wild Wings. The parking lot was crowded as usual and we had to drive around it a bit to find a space. We noticed people waiting outside and there were also people waiting on benches inside. It looked like they had been given pagers to let them know that their table was ready similar to the ones used at the Cheesecake Factory. There was also a counter where people picked up take-out orders. I thought, well, that’s a possibility if the wait is always too long. We asked the hostess how long the wait was and she answered, “One hour.” At least she was honest until other places that tell you 20 minutes that turns into an hour or more. We left, but not before picking up a take-out menu.
We learned from the menu and the Buffalo Wild Wings website that they have many different kinds of sauces to choose for the wings and other dishes. They have levels of spicy from mild to medium to hot to “Blazen” (I think that’s the term). There are also some varied, exotic, and ethnic flavors such as teriyaki, honey barbecue, Asian spice, and Caribbean Jerk. The menu includes wings both traditional and boneless that can be cooked with any of the sauces. There are sections for appetizers and chicken tenders including “naked” tenders that are grilled rather than breaded and fried. There’s a section for flatbreads that are like pizzas made with flatbread, barbecue sauce, cheese, and usually a meat such as chicken. They also serve burgers, ribs, sandwiches such as pulled pork, and much more than just wings. They have many different beers on tap including ones I hadn’t heard of such as Miller Genuine Draft Light. For nondrinkers they serve some interesting flavors of lemonade: mango, berry, and huckleberry. They also have desserts. We also learned from the menu that they have bar trivia games. Now that was something we had to try.
We planned to try going again on Monday, January 4. We figured it might not be as busy on a Monday, but if it was still was busy we could afford to wait an hour for a table. Traffic was slow on Citrus Avenue that evening because roadwork had closed the left lane at Arrow Highway. The parking lot looked busy but when we drove in we noticed there were many spaces in between the cars that were there. We parked fairly close to the door to the restaurant and reached it before 7 PM. This time there was no one waiting outside and even fewer people waiting on the benches inside. The group in front of us was seated right away. The hostess told us she could seat us as soon as a table was cleaned. She gave a choice between being seated in the bar or the dining area. We chose the latter and within a few minutes she seated us at a booth along the south wall of the large dining area.
We couldn’t believe our luck: practically no wait for a large table that was well located. The dining room has TV’s all around it mostly showing sporting events such as Monday Night Football and the BCS Fiesta Bowl between Texas Christian University (TCU) and Boise State. Between the screens on the walls were various sports memorabilia: cards, posters, photographs, banners such as those listing the years USC and UCLA were college football national champions, and Kobe Bryant’s Laker jersey. The restaurant looked more than half full. We couldn’t see the bar area that was slightly elevated from the dining area. The sound of the televised Fiesta Bowl played over the speakers. My wife saw some posters just above the windows that advertised 50 cent wing Tuesdays and 60 cent wing Thursdays.
The server soon came by and gave us menus. They had additional items that we hadn’t seen on the online menu or the take-out menu including Flatbread Flips that were like tacos made with flatbread and an additional dessert. We read over the menus and placed our orders. The first item the server brought was my wife’s huckleberry lemonade. Then they brought our Buzztime (www.buzztime.come) trivia portable game console, a blue box with a small keyboard and monochrome digital display. We read some of the instructions and learned that there were other games such as sports games and that players could register as club players and accumulate points. We hit the start button to play the game and it said, “Get ready to answer” the next question. But when it said, “Answer now”, no question appeared on the console screen. We tried just guessing. The instructions said the questions were multiple choice and to hit 1-5. We didn’t do very well guessing when we didn’t know the question.
It took a little while for our food to be ready and the server brought us our entrees before our appetizer. She said they had made our appetizer but then had accidently dropped it on the floor. She offered to have them make another at a reduced price but we declined because our entrees looked like enough food. I had the Smokestack Flip that consisted of pulled pork with honey barbecue sauce, fried onion rings, coleslaw, and jalapenos all inside two halves of a flatbread “taco”. It came in a basket of chips with salsa on the side. The sauce was spicy despite being low on the heat scale, probably due to the jalapenos. But combined with the onion rings and coleslaw it was very good. The pork was fully cooked only slightly chewy. It was surprisingly a good amount of food. The chips and salsa were just OK but this isn’t a Mexican restaurant. My wife enjoyed her buffalo chicken flatbread that was like a small pizza with chicken, cheese, and spicy garlic sauce.
While we ate our entrees the server brought us our appetizer. We had originally ordered four “naked” chicken tenders with medium sauce. They brought us four tenders grilled with what looked like pepper and no sauce. The server said they were compliments of the manager since they had dropped our original order. We tried a few and they were still good without the sauce: fully cooked, juicy, and with smoky flavor. The rest we took home and had in a salad the next day. After we finished our entrees my wife ordered a dessert from the menu insert that had also shown the flatbread flips. It was Sweet Cinnamon Bites: bits of sweet cinnamon bread pudding around a large scoop of vanilla ice cream that also had cinnamon sprinkled on it. She enjoyed it and found that the ice cream was the kind that didn’t melt too quickly.
My wife noticed that on a flatscreen TV above the window they were showing photos of the trivia players with the highest accumulated points. We then realized that the trivia questions appeared on these screens and not on the game console. We saw our user ID, “VERDNT” in 5th or 6th place with zero points. It was the latter half of a trivia game where players get more points the sooner they answer the question. As time passed the wrong answers would disappear leaving only the correct one. We got a few questions but didn’t place higher than 4th or 5th. We didn’t know if the other players were at the West Covina branch or at other branches across the region and the country. We were more ready for the next game, Countdown Trivia. It was similar to the prior game in that we got more points for answering sooner starting with 1,000 points and dropping to zero. But it was different in that the wrong answers did not disappear. Instead, three clues gradually appeared: the first two eliminating wrong answers and the third indicating the correct one. There were three rounds of five questions each.
We did well in the first round getting right answers to most of the questions quickly. Soon we were just a few points off the lead and then we took the lead. In either the first or second round we lost the lead but soon got it back. The questions covered several categories including music, movies, and history. We missed a question about the Mint in Philadelphia being the first government building built after the U.S. Constitution was signed. We also missed one about the Lakota Sioux being the Indian tribe featured in the movie Dances with Wolves. We noticed one player wasn’t getting any questions right. Maybe they were like we were in the beginning and hadn’t yet seen the questions on the screen. We were the only ones to quickly get the question about the U.S. fighting the British during the War of 1812. By the third round we had a good lead over the others. We got one about the meaning of Aud Lang Syne and with 2-3 questions our lead was unreachable. We had to think to get the last questions and we weren’t able to get our score above 10,000. We still placed first with a score of 9,745 and the screen showed that our score was second on a list of recent high scores. I think the maximum score is 15,000.
We left Buffalo Wild Wings at about 8:25 PM and if we had had to wait an hour for a table we would have probably been still waiting for our food at that time. Instead we had finished three courses and played a full game of Countdown Trivia. We’ll be back because we haven’t tried their wings and there are many other sauces to try. They also have music trivia on Saturdays at 6 pm.
Our next plan was to try Buffalo Wild Wings on Wednesday, December 30 or New Year’s Eve Eve. Since it had opened we had noticed that the parking lot for the shopping center was always full or nearly full. However, I had to go to work early on Thursday, December 31, so I didn’t want to have to wait too long to get a table. After I got home from work on Wednesday we drove to Buffalo Wild Wings. The parking lot was crowded as usual and we had to drive around it a bit to find a space. We noticed people waiting outside and there were also people waiting on benches inside. It looked like they had been given pagers to let them know that their table was ready similar to the ones used at the Cheesecake Factory. There was also a counter where people picked up take-out orders. I thought, well, that’s a possibility if the wait is always too long. We asked the hostess how long the wait was and she answered, “One hour.” At least she was honest until other places that tell you 20 minutes that turns into an hour or more. We left, but not before picking up a take-out menu.
We learned from the menu and the Buffalo Wild Wings website that they have many different kinds of sauces to choose for the wings and other dishes. They have levels of spicy from mild to medium to hot to “Blazen” (I think that’s the term). There are also some varied, exotic, and ethnic flavors such as teriyaki, honey barbecue, Asian spice, and Caribbean Jerk. The menu includes wings both traditional and boneless that can be cooked with any of the sauces. There are sections for appetizers and chicken tenders including “naked” tenders that are grilled rather than breaded and fried. There’s a section for flatbreads that are like pizzas made with flatbread, barbecue sauce, cheese, and usually a meat such as chicken. They also serve burgers, ribs, sandwiches such as pulled pork, and much more than just wings. They have many different beers on tap including ones I hadn’t heard of such as Miller Genuine Draft Light. For nondrinkers they serve some interesting flavors of lemonade: mango, berry, and huckleberry. They also have desserts. We also learned from the menu that they have bar trivia games. Now that was something we had to try.
We planned to try going again on Monday, January 4. We figured it might not be as busy on a Monday, but if it was still was busy we could afford to wait an hour for a table. Traffic was slow on Citrus Avenue that evening because roadwork had closed the left lane at Arrow Highway. The parking lot looked busy but when we drove in we noticed there were many spaces in between the cars that were there. We parked fairly close to the door to the restaurant and reached it before 7 PM. This time there was no one waiting outside and even fewer people waiting on the benches inside. The group in front of us was seated right away. The hostess told us she could seat us as soon as a table was cleaned. She gave a choice between being seated in the bar or the dining area. We chose the latter and within a few minutes she seated us at a booth along the south wall of the large dining area.
We couldn’t believe our luck: practically no wait for a large table that was well located. The dining room has TV’s all around it mostly showing sporting events such as Monday Night Football and the BCS Fiesta Bowl between Texas Christian University (TCU) and Boise State. Between the screens on the walls were various sports memorabilia: cards, posters, photographs, banners such as those listing the years USC and UCLA were college football national champions, and Kobe Bryant’s Laker jersey. The restaurant looked more than half full. We couldn’t see the bar area that was slightly elevated from the dining area. The sound of the televised Fiesta Bowl played over the speakers. My wife saw some posters just above the windows that advertised 50 cent wing Tuesdays and 60 cent wing Thursdays.
The server soon came by and gave us menus. They had additional items that we hadn’t seen on the online menu or the take-out menu including Flatbread Flips that were like tacos made with flatbread and an additional dessert. We read over the menus and placed our orders. The first item the server brought was my wife’s huckleberry lemonade. Then they brought our Buzztime (www.buzztime.come) trivia portable game console, a blue box with a small keyboard and monochrome digital display. We read some of the instructions and learned that there were other games such as sports games and that players could register as club players and accumulate points. We hit the start button to play the game and it said, “Get ready to answer” the next question. But when it said, “Answer now”, no question appeared on the console screen. We tried just guessing. The instructions said the questions were multiple choice and to hit 1-5. We didn’t do very well guessing when we didn’t know the question.
It took a little while for our food to be ready and the server brought us our entrees before our appetizer. She said they had made our appetizer but then had accidently dropped it on the floor. She offered to have them make another at a reduced price but we declined because our entrees looked like enough food. I had the Smokestack Flip that consisted of pulled pork with honey barbecue sauce, fried onion rings, coleslaw, and jalapenos all inside two halves of a flatbread “taco”. It came in a basket of chips with salsa on the side. The sauce was spicy despite being low on the heat scale, probably due to the jalapenos. But combined with the onion rings and coleslaw it was very good. The pork was fully cooked only slightly chewy. It was surprisingly a good amount of food. The chips and salsa were just OK but this isn’t a Mexican restaurant. My wife enjoyed her buffalo chicken flatbread that was like a small pizza with chicken, cheese, and spicy garlic sauce.
While we ate our entrees the server brought us our appetizer. We had originally ordered four “naked” chicken tenders with medium sauce. They brought us four tenders grilled with what looked like pepper and no sauce. The server said they were compliments of the manager since they had dropped our original order. We tried a few and they were still good without the sauce: fully cooked, juicy, and with smoky flavor. The rest we took home and had in a salad the next day. After we finished our entrees my wife ordered a dessert from the menu insert that had also shown the flatbread flips. It was Sweet Cinnamon Bites: bits of sweet cinnamon bread pudding around a large scoop of vanilla ice cream that also had cinnamon sprinkled on it. She enjoyed it and found that the ice cream was the kind that didn’t melt too quickly.
My wife noticed that on a flatscreen TV above the window they were showing photos of the trivia players with the highest accumulated points. We then realized that the trivia questions appeared on these screens and not on the game console. We saw our user ID, “VERDNT” in 5th or 6th place with zero points. It was the latter half of a trivia game where players get more points the sooner they answer the question. As time passed the wrong answers would disappear leaving only the correct one. We got a few questions but didn’t place higher than 4th or 5th. We didn’t know if the other players were at the West Covina branch or at other branches across the region and the country. We were more ready for the next game, Countdown Trivia. It was similar to the prior game in that we got more points for answering sooner starting with 1,000 points and dropping to zero. But it was different in that the wrong answers did not disappear. Instead, three clues gradually appeared: the first two eliminating wrong answers and the third indicating the correct one. There were three rounds of five questions each.
We did well in the first round getting right answers to most of the questions quickly. Soon we were just a few points off the lead and then we took the lead. In either the first or second round we lost the lead but soon got it back. The questions covered several categories including music, movies, and history. We missed a question about the Mint in Philadelphia being the first government building built after the U.S. Constitution was signed. We also missed one about the Lakota Sioux being the Indian tribe featured in the movie Dances with Wolves. We noticed one player wasn’t getting any questions right. Maybe they were like we were in the beginning and hadn’t yet seen the questions on the screen. We were the only ones to quickly get the question about the U.S. fighting the British during the War of 1812. By the third round we had a good lead over the others. We got one about the meaning of Aud Lang Syne and with 2-3 questions our lead was unreachable. We had to think to get the last questions and we weren’t able to get our score above 10,000. We still placed first with a score of 9,745 and the screen showed that our score was second on a list of recent high scores. I think the maximum score is 15,000.
We left Buffalo Wild Wings at about 8:25 PM and if we had had to wait an hour for a table we would have probably been still waiting for our food at that time. Instead we had finished three courses and played a full game of Countdown Trivia. We’ll be back because we haven’t tried their wings and there are many other sauces to try. They also have music trivia on Saturdays at 6 pm.
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