You just had to be there

The wait is over. Buffalo Wild Wings in Baxter finally opened its doors Monday.

• Photos

To celebrate its grand opening, Buffalo Wild Wings gave free wings for a year to its first 100 customers. Customers received a coupon book with 52 vouchers for six free wings - one order for every week of the year.

While many had waited metaphorically for Buffalo Wild Wings to open, dozens of Brainerd lakes' residents had spent anywhere from hours to overnight to get in line for the right to receive free wings.

Abbie Goeritz (left) and Ashley Schultz were first and second in line for Buffalo Wild Wings' grand opening Monday in Baxter. Brainerd Dispatch/Trevor Williams

First in line was Abbie Goeritz, who is working on graduating simultaneously from Central Lakes College and Pillager High School. Working at Cub Foods, she had gathered a group of friends from Cub to join her. They arrived at 5 p.m. Sunday and stayed throughout the night.

On why she braved the elements, Goeritz said, "I love wings." The night was "very chilly, but we had blankets."

Goeritz is a Seattle Seahawks fan and had convinced many Cub Foods friends to become Seahawks fans as well.

Going through the line, I asked 80 people what their favorite sports team was.

The Twins and Vikings were tied with 21.25 percent apiece of the vote for favorite sports team. The Wild were next with 12.5 percent.

Other teams like the CLC Raiders, Seahawks, Packers, Bears and Steelers accounted for 25 percent of the tally.

Buffalo Wild Wings

Where: Baxter on Highway 371 near Best Buy

Hours: 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. weekdays and Saturday, 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday

Curiously, 18.75 percent of people in line had no favorite sports team and some were completely apathetic about sports in general. The Timberwolves received one measly vote. No one chose the Gophers.

"Favorite sports team?" Cameron Lindner said. "It's not the Vikings because they've let me down for the past 23 years!"

"My favorite team is the Atlanta Falcons, that's where I'm from," said Charles Hobson.

When asked why he came to Baxter, Hobson said, "Employment, education and Buffalo Wild Wings!"

Inside, I spoke to general manager Tammy Angen about the Baxter location. Angen is a Baxter resident who previously worked at Iven's and McCabe's on the Bay.

"Baxter is the new 'Mayberry' project,'" said Angen. "We want to build locations in smaller communities and we are starting with Baxter."

The location seats 171 people, has five big TV screens and 28 37-inch TVs. It's open 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day except Sundays when it closes at midnight. Reservations are not taken.

When the Vikings play, Angen said, "We'll tune over half of the TVs to Vikings. The other NFL games will be on the other TVs."

As for her favorite sport, "I like hockey, so I like the Wild," said Angen.

On Monday night my sister and I visited the location.

I was impressed with one of the big screens that showed NFL highlights in ESPN high definition. The picture was amazingly sharp.

With a large opening-day crowd, everything ran smoothly. The only thing I think the location could improve is turning closed-captioning on when dialogue-intensive shows like "Pardon the Interruption" are being shown.

Between the wings, sports, music, and atmosphere, my sister remarked, "Mayberry is rocking tonight!"

TREVOR WILLIAMS, sports copy editor, can be reached at trevor.williams@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5866.