BY MEG VAN HUYGEN for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 10/2/2026
In late August, a paper takeout menu appeared in the window of the empty space at South 56th Street and South Tacoma Way, formerly the home of Vibe Dive Lounge. Then a sandwich board the next week, then a banner. Turns out, the Instagram rumors were true.
Two years and change after opening his first shop in the Lincoln District, local chicken magnate Buddy Brown’s second location of Buddy’s Chicken & Waffles is now open for business on STW, next to Dawson’s. For Brown, the fact that his new spot is in the Edison City neighborhood is important. He’s right back where he started from, just a few doors south of the shared ghost kitchen inside Edison Square where his fried chicken pop-up first found success in late 2021.
Brown’s extant full-service restaurant in the former Uncle Thurm’s space at South 37th Street and South G Street has been a sensation, with a slew of Instagram reels sending folks traveling from Seattle or even across the state to try his enormous fried chicken tenders served on waffles in various flavor profiles. Brown himself is a bit of a social media wonk too, posting regular reels on the state of the business, the food truck, specials, or anything else he thinks his crowd might like to know about.
There’s not much yet in the way of decor at the new Buddy’s, and they’ve been focusing mostly on takeout so far, less so on dine-in. Brown says the team was interested in hitting the ground running and that more ambiance will come later. Although the new shop came together pretty suddenly, he says it was always his plan to branch out into other neighborhoods.
“When I moved out here to Tacoma,” he says, “I had already been doing chicken and waffles at my brother’s house on Wednesdays. Then I went home to visit Baltimore during COVID, and I saw on DoorDash that there was a chicken-and-waffles spot, and I got food from there. Y’know, it was all right.”
The next day, he spotted a chicken-and-waffles shop by the same name but at a different address. “So I looked it up, and I saw they had four locations in Baltimore. And that’s when it hit me that this thing that I was doing back in Tacoma, I could turn it into a multi-location situation.”
“So yeah,” he laughs, “that’s a long way to say: ‘I’ve always known I was going to have multiple locations.’”
Brown adds that he wasn’t actively looking for a location per se when he snagged the space on STW. “My restaurant manager sent me the link to this space, and we toured it, and I liked it,” he says. “It was really a nostalgia thing. This is where I came from. I know you shouldn’t make business decisions based on nostalgia, but yeah, it was mostly that!”
He also says that the nightlife on South Tacoma Way was a major lure in opening the new Buddy’s, “because chicken and waffles was always supposed to be a late-night thing. It’s just hard to do late-night over there in the Lincoln District.” But on STW, he says, “there’s already late-night going on.”
Like the Lincoln restaurant, Buddy’s STW will be serving halal chicken tenders, a move that Brown says, despite not being Muslim himself, was about both quality and accessibility. “I was getting chicken from Restaurant Depot one day,” he explains, “and when I went to get my regular chicken tenders, they only had halal. So I got the halal, and I made a post online: ‘Hey, they didn’t have regular chicken, so I’m using halal.’ And people who only eat halal meats, they came to the restaurant that day. I said, ‘Oh wow, I didn’t know this was a thing.’ The quality was noticeably nicer too. I looked into how they care for the chickens, and it’s more humane. So it was an easy swap for me.”
Both locations share the same menu, although the STW joint may see a waffle special become part of the regular roster. “The Cheddar Bay biscuit waffle was supposed to be a special, but I keep it on the menu because I like it. So we might just add it to the menu permanently.” It’s a waffle-ized version of the Cheddar Bay biscuit from Red Lobster, although, Brown says, it’s a bit higher in quality. “We make a garlic-Parmesan butter for it. Yeah, the cornbread and the Cheddar Bay biscuit waffle are my favorite.” There’s also a seasonal pumpkin spice chai waffle on offer this month.
If you don’t customarily take your chicken with waffles, well, the massive tenders are also served at Buddy’s in two different sandwich forms, as well as in a box, accompanied by fries. Buddy’s rep for doing a brisk takeout business is certainly welcome in a neighborhood full of live music venues, where good takeout after about 9 p.m. is scarce. But unlike the Lincoln Buddy’s location, which frequently sees long lines on weekends, business has been a little slow since the team moved into the STW restaurant about a month ago. It probably won’t be long before he’s got a Howdy Bagel queue situation on his hands, so if you’re craving chicken, the time is now.
Slow or slammed, though, Brown is just happy to be open for biz in his new spot at last. “The biggest challenge right now,” he says, “is just making sure that everybody knows we’re here.”
Buddy’s Chicken & Waffles
3709 S. G St.
5439 S. Tacoma Way
@buddyschickenandwaffles
