In 2008, I picked Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) in a stock picking contest. YTD, it’s up around 30%. But I ate there for the first time the other week (after picking up $75 of chicken wings for other occasions). I’m not so bullish now. Why?
The atmosphere. Okay, I’ll admit I was kind of overwhelmed the first time I went there. Boneless wings costing between 75 cents and a buck each? Yeah, good stuff, but not the kind of thing that I’d do once a quarter.
Eating there was disorienting. Dozens of screens. Noise through the roof. Lousy acoustics. Air temp designed to drive you out of the place. Sensory overload. Cheap burgers, pithy amount of fries. Great wings. Even the kids were overwhelmed. Everything oriented towards turning you over quickly.
It reminded me of the time we took a Caribbean cruise, almost a kind of tourist trap, complete with smiling kitchen staff peering out through their porthole sizing up the next round of suckers they were reeling in. Perfunctory service. We won’t be back anytime soon.
So I’m down on BWLD. Yes, they’ll do well simply because they are in that stage where they aren’t mainstream yet, and there are plenty of folks who have yet to experience the store, dropping a load of cash there in the process. But it has no legs. Watch for this thing to jump the shark sometime in the next 24 months. This isn’t even analysis, it’s just a channel check. No one there appeared to be enjoying themselves. They all looked like anxious monkeys waiting to flee.
