Buffalo Wild Wings is killing one of customers' favorite deals
On Wednesday, the wings chain announced plans to cancel its current Tuesday wings deal in favor of a boneless wings "buy-one, get-one" offer. According to the company, the rollout of the new Tuesday deal - and the death of half-price wings - will be completed at company-owned locations in mid-September.
The chain's Wings Tuesday deal is extremely popular with customers. According to the company, the half-price wings deal was one of the major drivers of traffic in the second quarter, allowing Buffalo Wild Wings to outpace the casual-dining industry in terms of how many customers were visiting the chain.
However, customers' love for half-priced wings ended up hurting Buffalo Wild Wings because of "historically high" wing costs. While the wings boosted same-store sales, they cut into restaurants' margins. In other words, while the deal was bringing in customers, it was costing restaurants more money to sell the wings than they were making from the deal.
Boneless wings present a better deal for the company as it tries to cut costs.
"Boneless wings outsold traditional wings in 2016, demonstrating their popularity amongst our fans and a more favorable food cost than traditional wings," Buffalo Wild Wings COO James M. Schmidt said in a call with investors.
Buffalo Wild Wings has struggled to grow sales as the casual-dining industry has entered a slump. In June, CEO Sally Smith announced she was leaving the company after an activist investor triumphed in a monthslong battle for the wings chain's board.
The company's stock plummeted after reporting after market close on Wednesday that profits fell in the second quarter.
As of 11:15 a.m. on Thursday, the company's shares had fallen more than 11%.