How Buffalo Wild Wings Can Avoid Red Lobster’s Mistakes

Just days after Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy, Buffalo Wild Wings began offering endless chicken wings. The move seems risky, given that the seafood chain’s demise has been widely attributed to its bottomless shrimp campaign.

The Buffalo Wild Wings deal, available Mondays and Wednesdays dine-in only through June 30, includes unlimited boneless chicken wings and fries for $19.99. The chicken wing chain seems aware of the similarities between the two promotions, pleading “please don’t put us out of business” on Instagram.

Either way, there are some things Buffalo Wild Wings should pay attention to in order to avoid Red Lobster’s fate.

Where Red Lobster Misstepped

The endless shrimp promotion at Red Lobster has been a successful annual limited offer for over 20 years. However, the chain’s sole seafood supplier convinced Red Lobster to promote it year-round in order to sell off excess shrimp, which would result in higher costs.

“This decision created both operational and financial problems for (Red Lobster)… imposing burdensome supply obligations on the company,” according to Red Lobster’s bankruptcy filing.

Higher costs meant fewer servers and longer wait times for consumers. Adding an all-you-can-eat offering that was more popular than initially anticipated was a disaster for the chain.

Lessons to learn

If Buffalo Wild Wings can learn anything from this debacle, it’s that supplier relationships are critical to success. Good chicken suppliers know they depend on restaurant brands for business and are willing to adapt accordingly.

For example, early in the chicken sandwich wars, suppliers did not require restaurant brands to change what they sold to match production, instead they turned to smaller chickens to meet the request.

As for me, I look forward to endless chicken wings.