Even though the founders of Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) produced tasty food and a fun concept, they couldn't make the business take off.

The company was on the verge of implosion when Sally Smith joined as chief financial officer in 1994.

Back then it was a small chain of 35 restaurants called BW-3 for Buffalo Wild Wings & Weck. A weck is a type of German roll.

The firm had no human resources, no marketing department and no accounting system. It paid bills using Quicken, the personal-finance software.

Money was tight. Lenders found the firm too unsavory for loans. And the IRS was pounding at the door. The company hadn't filed a tax return in two years, although it regularly paid payroll and income taxes. It would be a year before Smith managed to set the company straight with Uncle Sam.

The founders recruited Smith from her job as CFO of Miracle Ear, the hearing-aid outfit.

Wild Time

Smith, 49, was born in Grand Forks, N.D., and graduated from the University of North Dakota with a degree in business administration and accounting. When she joined Buffalo Wild Wings, she stayed close to home, what with its headquarters in Minneapolis. Still, she didn't see the move coming.

"If you asked me 20 years ago whether I'd be running a restaurant company, I never would have imagined that in my wildest dreams," Smith told IBD.

Smith had to start from scratch. She broadened her responsibilities as a chief financial officer. She developed an accounting department, plus marketing, human resources and operations offices.

Her biggest challenge: "hiring really good people away from their really good jobs and figuring out how I was going to pay them."

Most of the people she hired had to take salary cuts. Smith had to sell them on the brand and the fledgling company's hopes.

"I never thought of myself as a salesperson, but I must have somehow convinced them this was a great opportunity," she said.

Smith did this by "appealing to their own entrepreneurship, their own desire to do something from the ground up."

The company didn't even have computers at the time. So Smith handwrote offer letters.

Despite the company's disjointed records and balance sheets, Smith managed to get a $1 million loan from a Cincinnati bank in mid-1995 and a $700,000 private placement.

"If you keep attacking the problem or working on something in a different way, you'll eventually figure it out," she said.

In 1996, Smith rose to chief executive. The next year she mapped a plan to open 10 to 12 company restaurants and 20 to 25 franchised units and raise another $4 million to $6 million in debt and equity.

Despite having a full plate at work at the time, Smith made the time to coach her 10-year-old daughter's soccer and basketball teams. She also has a son who's four years younger.

Smith's next challenge was to secure venture capital and overhaul the restaurants. She proposed redesigning the restaurants and logo and axing Weck from the name.

She allotted only $5,000 to hire a designer to create a new logo, plus a new interior and exterior look.

But her ideas didn't fly with the franchisees. They even wanted to keep Weck in the company's title.

That opposition didn't last. As soon as Smith opened a few company and franchised restaurants with the new look and logo and showed them how hot sales were, the franchisees warmed to all her ideas.

Smith added more meal items such as hamburgers and salads and a children's menu to broaden the customer base beyond 20-something males.

She replaced counter-only service with flex serve, in which customers placed orders at the counter and a server brought their food and drinks to the table. The hybrid of a fast-food and sit-down restaurant made customers want to stay longer and watch sports on the big-screen TVs. As a result, they ordered more.

"Everything we did had to work. We had no margin for error, so we relied on research and talking to people," she said.

Despite fantastic new sales and earnings, Smith had to find venture capital to take the company to the next level. But her timing was bad. It was the late '90s. Venture capitalists were flocking to dot-coms and had no appetite for restaurants.

Smith and her CFO traveled coast to coast, working 16-hour days, to talk to anyone about the company.

"If anybody had an idea of who we should call or talk to, we did it. But it took true perseverance," she said.

The kind needed to overcome constant rejection. "We got turned down so many times. So the first thing we would ask is, was there something about the story that they didn't like, was there something we could do to change the presentation," Smith said.

Investors were so impressed with their growth plans, the size of the initial public offering was raised from 2.7 million shares at $14 to $16 each to 3 million shares at $17.

Buffalo Wild Wings eventually debuted on the Nasdaq on Nov. 21, 2003. The stock soared into the low 20s the first day. It's nearly tripled since then and recently reached the mid-60s.

Smith and her Wings are simply cookin'. Her secret? She makes sure her marketing aims at its core customer base of men ages 18 to 40. An ad for its jerk chicken shows a chicken tripping over an old lady who's using a walker.

It all works. Loyal customers return to the restaurant an average of four times a month, according to company surveys.

College students who got hooked on wings when the restaurants first opened near campuses continue to eat at the restaurant in their 30s with their children. It's become the local laid-back place to go eat, drink beer and watch sports.

Bulking Up

Buffalo Wild Wings is simply a heavyweight in the business. It reports selling 45 million pounds of chicken wings last year.

Today Buffalo Wild Wings has over 415 restaurants in 37 states and 4,500 employees.

Earnings growth flew 19% to 81% year over year the past three years while sales growth soared 23% to 35%. Cash flow per share, pretax margin and return on equity also rose steadily the past three years.

Over the next several years, the company plans to open more company-owned and franchised restaurants in new and existing markets. Smith aspires to expand by 20% to 25% a year, with a goal of 1,000 locations and possibly going overseas.

Smith's advice to others who hope to become managers: "Be kind. Be fair. Life is about people."

She offers four points for success: continue learning, be willing to try something new, don't give up and enjoy what you do.

BY TRANG HO