Buffalo Joe's: Spicy Joe's Buffalo & Lemon Pepper

So for years I have lived in a castle in North Dallas and have passed by a place at Frankford and Marsh Ln called Buffalo Joe's, and every time I pass by it I have said "Hey, we should go there sometime soon!"  However, we never actually made it there until a recent Friday night (at the suggestion of my Queen).  I naturally assumed that a place with Buffalo in the title would likely offer an assortment of world famous Buffalo wings.  So after we were both off work, we decided to make the trek up the street to Buffalo Joe's and find out just what it was all about.

When we arrived, we immediately found the parking lot to be full.  Come to find out, apparently Friday night is free poker night at Buffalo Joe's, so the place was packed.  As someone who once upon a time supported themselves playing poker, I never really understood the appeal of playing cards all night without any real risk or reward coming to the winners and losers.  But that will be a topic for another time, another place, and another blog.  Let's get back to business.  As we walk in and seat ourselves we do take note of a few things.  Everyone is drinking, nobody is eating, lots of people smoking outside, the water dispensary was broken, and it took forever to get a waitress to acknowledge us.  So it looks like we have cheap drinks, questionable food, a rough crowd, and bad service.  In other words, my kind of place.  They have plenty of TVs tuned to all kinds of sports, which is a great feature if you were DVRing the Olympics and didn't want to see spoilers. Once we flagged down a waitress, we ordered some fried pickles while we looked at the menu.  These were really good, and actually unique.  Most places batter and fry their pickles, but these had been breaded instead of battered.  Made for a unique texture, so we were pleased.  We then ordered a dozen wings to split with half Spicy Joe's Buffalo and half Lemon Pepper.

As I always do, I had the boys down in the lab do some preliminary research on the joint before we went.  Their website, www.thebuffalojoes.com, appears to have been built in roughly 1999 with only occasional updates.  However, they do have one key attraction:  cheap wings.  A dozen for ten bucks, two dozen for $16.99, and four dozen for $29.99.  There is no doubt that these prices will someday lead to a ridiculous challenge of some sort being attempted (prompted by a few cocktails) which will certainly be documented on this site.  The wings themselves were a decent size, above average I'd say.  They weren't particularly crispy, but they had a good flavor.  They were served with blue cheese, ranch, celery and carrots.  As you'll see below, they weren't big on presentation.  Onward to the flavors.

Our first flavor is Lemon Pepper.  These were the crispier of the two.  The Queen noted that it tasted more like an actual lemon butter on the wings as opposed to a light tossing in some type of lemon-pepper-buttery-oil concoction.  They were fairly lemony, had no heat, and could have used a little more pepper in my opinion.  If we go back, I'm sure we will get these again.

Lemon Pepper:

Flavor: 7.5

Heat: 0

Overall: 7.5

Our second flavor was their Buffalo sauce.  The waitress asked if we wanted mild, medium, or spicy, so naturally I said SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!  When they arrived, they had a good aroma to them.  They were less crispy than the Lemon Pepper, and were oversauced.  Why do I dislike too much sauce on my chicken wings?  Because when wings get oversauced, accidents happen.  Just like this night.  As I was picking apart one flapper, the thing slipped, went flying through the air, and I managed to bat it down while managing to not drop it on the floor, while almost knocking my drink off the table.  Disaster avoided, except that I now have a pair of shorts covered in Buffalo sauce.  Some day a scenario like this will likely lead to a trip to the emergency room where I have to explain how the Queen got a chicken wing stuck in her eye.  Anyways, the sauce itself had a good flavor, more on the buttery side than the vinegary side.  The heat wasn't too much; maybe a little step up from Original Hot at Wingstop.  These too will likely be in the rotation if/when we return to Buffalo Joe's.  

Spicy Joe's Buffalo:

Flavor: 7

Heat: 5.5

Overall: 7

So overall, the food was pretty good.  The atmosphere is about what you might expect from a neighborhood bar.  Probably a pretty good place to go watch the ballgame on TV, have some greasy bar food, and some cheap drinks.  Its great to know I have another place close to home should I need to venture out into the kingdom for some wings.  It wasn't quite Saucesome, but a respectable showing nonetheless.  Below is the ad I grabbed on their website listed under their specials.  If you're like me, there's probably one thing that caught your eye in particular.

Yep.  50 cent wings on Tuesdays.  All day.