Fire Mountain

You all can forget it now. Fire Mountain closed 2÷6÷2016 as part of Ovation Restaurants national closings. Go to Ponderosa down the road if you like buffet style dining. Better food, very nice servers, clean, comfortable seating and good prices and value.

SAVE YOUR MONEY!!! Being out and about on Sunday {24 Jan. 2016}, I decided to give this place a try. Adequate parking, nice-​looking place both inside and out. I arrived around 4:30pm, so it really wasn’t crowded. I THOUGHT that was the reason, anyway. So, just shy of $ 15 later, and given an explanation of how it worked, I was turned loose on the buffet. Nice selection to be found on the salad bars, everything looked fresh, and the bit of salad I had was fine, until a fly landed on it {in winter?} and that was that. On to the hot food, then. I took a baked chicken boob, mashed potatoes, and awesome-​looking green beans with onions. The boob was dry enough to choke on. Those lovely green beans? Mealy and mushy. Potatoes were potatoes. So I went back up, got a FRIED chicken boob… or it may have been a thigh… couldn’t tell by color or taste, sadly, but at least it wasn’t as dry as the baked one. Had a taco with meat I likely could’ve had from taco for $ 2. I noticed that okra appeared in 3 different forms: fried, plain, and with tomatoes and sauce. My question is why even ONE kind? This is not the deep south where apparently they like the slimy stuff! The dessert bar… absolutely tasteless vanilla soft-​serve ice cream, and a small square of coconut custard pie, which, surprisingly, was really good. So… I really feel rooked out of $ 15, and I figured out why the place was REALLY near-​empty. There are at least half a dozen restaurants dotted around Fire Mountain – go to them.

A colleague and I went here a few weeks ago, and I was happy with Fire Mountain. For lunch on a weekend, $ 20 got us two buffets and a drink. Some of the food at the buffet is old, dry, or not maintained at the right temperature, but I expect that from a buffet. I like the fact that they give you rolls, too. I’ll be back when I’m in the area.

Fire mountain used to be great but lately the place has gone downhill. I like the fact that you can get steak on the buffet but other than that it’s the same thing every time I go there and the prices are a little high for what you’re getting. Ponderosa is right down the street and is definitely better.

Had a great Easter Sunday dinner. It wasn’t too crowded and the price was good. Buffet was filled with all kinds of food and the carving station had turkey and ham. Everything from salads to dessert. We did not leave there hungry.

over cooked, under cooked, over salted and just sad. :(Apparently this place USED to be awesome but went down hill according to the locals that took me here.

I really never thought it could be this bad, maybe the fact that at 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon and only a few cars in the parking lot should have been a good indicator of what I would be in for if I walked through the door. If I used the word terrible it would be an understatement. I hate writing this review, but it is what it is. Food was either cold, dried out, or over salted. What really upset me the most was that the steak was kept in a metal pan on the grill, which when I asked the server for medium rare he pulled a piece out of the pan tossed it onto the grill, sliced it, and from ten feet away asked if it was okay. It wasn’t until I got to my table and looked at it did I realize how well done it was not to mention how bad it tasted. The carved ham wasn’t much better, and I wasn’t about to try the carved turkey. The only thing that wasn’t too bad was the salad bar, and at this point I’ve had better. I’ll update after submitting my online survey to Ryan restaurants, and see if they respond.

The rolls that the waitress brought to our table were under cooked. The rolls on the buffets were hard enough to use as bricks. Nothing tasted right. And if you wanted ham or the stuff that looked like beef, there was never someone to cut it, since they didn’t have any cutting utensils. Our waitress was really friendly, which is the only reason I’m giving it two stars.

I have taken my family here since they opened. We used to love it. I don’t know what happened but the food and service have really gone down hill.

I’m not sure if I get unusually picky or not when I go to a buffet, but there never seems to be anything I want.
The food I had was good, considering we came in a half an hour before close. The meat and grarvy, while cold, was still tasty, and the veggies and sweet potato were excellent. We met our waitress once, and that was all. Plates stacked up on the table impressively high, and remained there after we left.
I must give the cook credit — he whipped up my friend some stir fry on request as he was cleaning his station. That’s outstanding in my book. I know what its like to be interrupted while closing, and I can only imagine a guest doing it in your face.
Be aware, there are no TV’s, so if you want to watch the Steelers struggle against the Colts, the Boardwalk across the street would be your best bet. The place was nearly empty and it creeped me out a little, but a lot of things creep me out a little.
If you’ve got a big group, or if nobody is feeling picky, for $ 12 a person it’s not a bad deal. You should know, however, that come in a half hour until close at any restaurant and you’re not gonna get the best service or food. It’s a fact.

Note: Fire Mountain is part of Ryan’s Restaurant Group/Buffet’s Incorporated, which also owns Ryan’s Grill and Buffet and… ulp…Old Country Buffet. This is also the only Fire Mountain around that I know of.
Yup. That should reveal something about my dining experience yesterday. I found out the hard way.
Here, upon passing it last weekend, I was thinking it might be a BBQ chain a la Damon’s, which I’ve never been to.
Actually, it’s more like Ponderosa.
Oh, they have lots and lots of stuff; baked potatoes (sat around too long), mashed potatoes, potato salad (processed «Amish» tater salad), cole slaw (zero flavor), fried chicken (not bad), roasted chicken (also not bad), meatloaf (horrible), BBQ ribs (meh), french fries, pizza (actually not half bad), a big salad bar, tacos, spaghetti, chicken salad, soups, a bunch of desserts from carrot cake and fudge to pudding and soft serve ice cream, and… I think you can figure out what kind of picture I’m painting here.
It was a glorified cafeteria, which is what buffets essentially are.
You can’t make that much food and expect it all to be delicious.
Although…those hot buttered dinner rolls were more than decent.
I’m going to give it 3 stars since the food was not uniformly bad, the service was highly efficient (they instinctively know when you need a refill on your beverage and when you need plates taken away), and it’s cheaper than a Halloween costume on November 1^st. It’s about 10 bucks a person for lunch, which you pay for as you walk in.
Hey, it’s all-​you-​can-​eat!
And when it’s all-​you-​can-​eat, you can make weird creations.
I made a Mexican Baked Potato. Hey, I had to entertain myself.
I saw a kid slather his dinner rolls in hot fudge.
When your food’s not so great, you tend to play with it.
Unless I really hit rock bottom, I doubt I’ll be back.