Thunderbird Country Buffet Restaurant

The food was okay. I really loved the chicken and dumplings. I will go back again, but I will really try to get there as soon as they first start serving lunch.

The food was ok tea is the only thing with the buffet sodas are xtra .If you pay with a card it’s extra per every person and we all know to use your card there’s only one charge .So to charge per every person using the same card is just greedy and not fair. Find a Golden Coral and save yourself money and time.

Probably Southern home cooking at its very best. The Thunderbird Country Buffet Restaurant may be one of those hidden gems that you have to discover when making a road trip Georgia or Florida, or proceeding through the Carolinas while on I-​95.
First off, the food here is not for the faint of heart. If you are worried about watching your cholesterol, there is good reason to when eating here. You’ll easily have a 2,000−3,000 calorie meal when eating the country ham, sausage, fat back, buttermilk biscuits, pancakes and other pound-​packing items. And that’s okay, considering that this is a buffet and not a restaurant designed for contestants on «The Biggest Loser» weight-​loss show. What I found remarkable about this buffet is that for $ 7.99, you can get a lot of food, in addition to coffee. For good eating at a low cost, you can’t find this sort of deal anywhere else.
The restaurant was very clean and comfortable to eat in, and the customer service was pretty good. Really good hospitality and fellowship amongst the restaurant staff & their customers, to which it appears that a number of the latter have been patronizing this restaurant for years. Aside from breakfast, the Thunderbird also has a lunch and dinner buffet schedule.
This venue is inside of the Thunderbird Motel, for those that are actively looking for the restaurant.

I Love this place. My husband and I always stop here on the way down to Florida. I love their fried chicken and they have the best macaroni and cheese I ever ate. If you are on a diet don’t come here, but they do have a nice salad bar with fresh vegetables. Reasonably price. If you think you are stopping to eat at a fancy restaurant this is not the place. The motel does look like a dive, but I’m not staying at the motel.

If you want southern food at its best, you have to try this place. My in laws and I have been there so often that the folks there know us. Whenever I am home in SC, it is a must that we stop in. By the way, don’t look for any dishes with a low calorie count. I did say southern food!

My parents and I stopped here for lunch on our way back to Florida from DC via Raleigh. After having eaten out for eight days, we were all very happy to have a good meal that reminded us of home. We all enjoyed our lunch and the bill was only $ 29 and change for three of us! The fried chicken and the mac and cheese are the real deal, as was the lemon meringue pie. The deviled eggs were the best I’ve ever had at a restaurant. Among the items offered were meatloaf, stuffed green peppers, pot roast, mustard greens, keilbasa and another sausage. The staff was friendly and very good about drink refills. The only negative I can say is that I found the black-​eyed peas a little salty. Overall, a great place to stop right off I-​95 in Florence.

Skip this breakfast! Well, the coffee was ok, but that’s about it. Nice selection but none of it tasty. Disappointed.

We have been going here since I was little, at least 20 years. If you are looking for an upscale atmosphere, you will be a little disappointed. If you are looking for good food, you will certainly be pleased.

I really hate to give this place two stars because I think the food is really good. The salad bar was excellent, the wait staff was good, the main bar was pretty good as well. BUT the atmosphere is so awful. I really wanted it to be good, but I felt like I was in the middle of a really bad movie. The enclosed hotel is so seedy and the restaurant is in such bad shape.

Had the breakfast buffet. Great fresh pancakes, not those sweet ones from cake mix. Fresh toast perfects, great sausage, sausage gravy the bomb. Can get eggs to order. Large variety of fresh fruit. Definitely would come again. Not snazzy but who cares. Highly recommended

A few times a year, my grandma has to go see a doctor in Columbia. She ALWAYS insists that we stop by the Thunderbird on our way home when we pass it on 95, and she ALWAYS gets a box of frozen sausage to go. I don’t think they usually sell boxes of sausage out of their freezer (LOL) but they make an exception for my grandma and it is very sweet. She absolutely loves it. Great country buffet, too. We have been coming here for many years.

I went there last October for my mother’s birthday and to visit Francis Marion for Open House. I enjoyed their country buffet very much so. It was almost as if my own family had cooked/​prepared the meal themselves. I would recommend this restaurant for anyone that wants a down home southern meal.

I came here on a road trip with my boyfriend. this in no way a place I would come by myself. but my boyfriend grew up in this area and he loves the food cause they have fat back and grits for breakfast… So the this place looks like it got stuck in the 60’s…literally.
The place was not up kept and I can imagine that all sort of laws were broken on the food.
I can’t with this place. but my sometimes you have to take one for the team when you love someone.

Four helpings later I can honestly say this is a DONT MISS place to eat!!! Staff was prompt and provided service with a smile.

If you can deal with the aging décor then this place is surely worth a stop. Southern food done at it’s best, the banana pudding is amazing and the fried chicken is well worth the clogged arteries and future heart disease. The place hasn’t changing in the 20 years that I have been going there, but that’s part of it’s charm now, isn’t it?

I figured I had a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ shoot of this place being any good, the parking lot was full and the reviews were mixed. Overall the place was okay, but I felt like I was stepping back to 1980 something. Was not impressed with the food at all. Chicken tasted weird and the Mac and Cheese left more to be desired. Service was okay. Price was more that what it is worth. Just avoid.

Great southern food. If you choose your restaurants by décor dont go… but you dont eat décor do you?! :). By far the best fried chicken and peach cobler. BTW the old lady that makes it has been make it for the last 35 years… that should say something

I read the other reviews. They must have been written by a bunch of Yankees ! We don’t get here very often because we don’t live here. If you love southern food you will love their country buffet. Great fried chicken. The day we ate here they had fried fish which were cooked perfectly. The stewed tomatoes put a smile on my husbands face. Their red velvet cake made me want to go back for seconds it was so good. The servers were great always made sure our tea was filled and our empty plates were taken away. So if you are southern you will love this place.

If they had zero stars I would give it that… The «ThunderTurd» is the dirtiest motel in the world… The kitchen HAS to be the Same… FatBack is good though… the train wakes you up every morning… What a Dump… I have stayed there at least 25 nights in my life, and regret EVERY one… THUNDERTURD…DUMP.
The Buffet is a joke… Go to McDonalds… It is better than this joint.

This place isn’t that bad. True, it’s not a resturant that serves country food, this is a country resturant. It’s patrons are the local laborers and workers. This is real no muss country cooking, the kind of food you might find at a truckstop, except as a buffet. And that’s not a bad thing. I would recommend it for folks like me that seek out the «hole in the wall» places for good and interseting food, not atmosphere.