I am old enough to have memories of Carson back to the 80's. Dining at the area around Carson Plaza has always been a hit-or-miss proposition, and I've had my fair share of misses, like being seated at the Denny's and then completely refused service (to be fair, this was around the same time as the 1992 riots), or the time I ordered a 5 piece combo at the KFC and puked it up 30 minutes later because my stomach knew something was very, very wrong. But the recent renovations have been a huge plus for the area and I've had a string of really good experiences, right up until my recent visit to Buffalo Wild Wings. My main reason for visiting was that my wife and I had tickets to see Mission Impossible: Fallout at the Cinemark Theaters and we wanted to eat nearby, but Olive Garden was out because we dine there a lot and I knew it would be a starch-fest, and really we just wanted to try something different.
So my wife and I walk into the restaurant, and the first thing we encounter is that the hostesses are steering us toward the bar area, due to a lack of wait-staff coverage in the dining area (this was right in the middle of the Saturday night dinner rush). My wife began to ask questions but I wanted to be chill about it, telling her that I'm willing to forgive "Restaurant-Industry Stuff" as long as the overall experience is still good. So we are seated, and the Millennial-generation waitress is very polite and prompt in taking our drink orders and answering questions about the menu. We decided to split a "Traditional Medium" wings order, with sauce choices of "Honey BBQ", "Spicy Garlic", and "Thai Curry". We also attempted to order "Mac & Cheese" as a side dish - but they were out of that. We then tried asking for "Beer Battered Onion Rings" - same answer. So we settled on "Potato Wedges" along with "Veggie Slaw" as our side dish choices.
The order was filled in around 15 minutes. I found the wings with Honey BBQ sauce to be tasty and the Spicy Garlic was also good, albeit a tad over-seasoned. To my disdain, the Thai Curry sauce was so overloaded with salt that I began to wonder if they just did it that way to increase beverage sales. But it was still an OK meal, our intention at this point was to just finish and get of of there as quickly as possible and go see our movie. I made a bee-line to the bathroom to wash up, the biggest challenge at this point being the complete absence of any paper products with which to dry my hands - they were really nowhere to be found. My wife had the same experience in the women's bathroom, so we ended up scoring some napkins off the bartender.
I think at this point a complete picture comes into focus. Whoever is responsible for the management of this restaurant is under severe cost-control pressure. I've done long stints of business travel so I've seen restaurants all over this country, and what I saw here was pretty much the worst I've seen as far as shoddy cost-management practices. But the place was still getting brisk business as we left, so I didn't see any lack of traffic as the reason. I just don't know why it had to be this way, nor do I care to. I probably won't be coming back any time soon, given that I'm not a huge fan of the whole "Chicken Wings as a Meal" industry trend, and even with that in mind, I'd say the most basic Wing Stop you would find in a random strip mall is still several miles ahead of this establishment. But I did take comfort in the fact that some things about Carson never seem to change. Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless. read more