HomeTown Buffet

What to say? My step son enjoys coming here so we indulge him once in awhile. The pros? The icee machine and self serve soda machines. The variety of starchy foods. (I’m a starch fanatic). The friendly servers The cons? I don’t generally come across healthy food items in the heated trenchers. The price is ridiculous!
Overall if it weren’t for the little man, we would never come here.

This place is typical «buffet» style. A crowded, self serve, guilty pleasure, that most people complain about the quality of food for prices because they forget that they pay for variety in the masses.
My experience was decent. My boyfriend and I came here because it was different. We normally don’t go to buffets because we never eat as much as they charge but this time we were super hungry.
My favorite was the salad bar, chicken pot pie, the jalapeño corn bread and the desserts. The baked chicken was kinda fatty and the veggies came right out of the can. I disliked pretty much everything else.
Our server was nice but seemed that she was in a hurry. I gave her a big tip because of the holidays. She didn’t seem to notice or care that I took some goodies home to feed to my cats.

Is good place to eat, it is clean and stuff is friendly. I would like to see more uniformity in the experiences there, One day the ice cream machine is not working, another day the slushies machine is not working, another day they are out of coffee for a while. Attention to these details are important. Food quality is good for a buffet at the price it is marketed. Definitively going back!

This Home Town Buffet restaurant is no different from other low end buffet restaurants. The cost of lunch is $ 8.49 without coupon. Of course the coupon you received from the mail will bring the cost down to $ 5.99. The restaurant is old but clean and waiter /​waitress are pleasant and very actively taking away dirty dishes. There are plenty of seats to choose from and parking spaces are easy to find and convenient.
The selection of the food is pretty limited. Normally there are five different vegetables to choose from in the salad bar. There are only three choices for soup next to the salad bar. The entrée selections are very limited also to about 12 including the side dishes. Some of the entrées are tasteless and some are salty depending on the batch of food when they were made. There are plenty of choices for desert though. However, some of the desert dishes taste like made from synthetic materials.
In conclusion, it is good place to go for a quick lunch, but not a place to go to enjoy food.

Update since 5÷13÷2014:
My opinion couldn’t go any lower on this place is give it 1 star just because I can’t go none on that. Where do I start?
Broken beverage machines, clogged sewage, unsanitary restrooms and hot tables (yes I just went there by putting both categories together).
Staff is unfriendly and the Manager looks unprofessional, sloppy and uninviting.
Chairs and tables are broken so is the ice cream machine.
I paid $ 45 for 3 people about a lil more than a regular price would be at Sizzler for 4 people.
I would not recommend this place for anyone that is looking to get allot of food for a reasonable price.
Only thing that gives it a star is full parking.
When I came here a few years ago this place was decent when it first started but now I won’t (after this experience) ever go back.
Its basically like going to a community kitchen for the help.

Food was good, but slow getting out of the kitchen.
Small kids were allowed unsupervised to get food and were touching everything, and contaminated clean utensils and dishes. They were touching food placing on there plates and returning food. All this in front of staff and the manager.
I advised manager but he was afraid to talk to parents. Manager tossed some food items and replace some urinals, but enough to want to get seconds.

Okay, yeah you probably are thinking why did I rate 5 stars? Well, honestly. I’ve been to Hometown buffet for such a long time and might I say it still tastes like how I tried it back when I was a kid. What do you people expect? A 5-​star Vegas buffet with such GREAT GREAT food? Like maybe Chef Ramsey status? You will pay for what you get. It’s inexpensive, simple – but great tasting to me – , and well it’s a BUFFET.
I went today, on a Sunday evening around 6−7ish PM. It wasn’t busy at all, very calm environment and everything. The food is fine. Reading the reviews scared the crap out of me. Made me not want to go at all, but then I thought about it. Back then Unilocal did not exist and I would never find out how this place was unless I went to it first. I got that roast beef, mash potatoes, corn, dinner roll, stuffing (just a little too sweet for me), green beans, fried chicken (yeah good stuff, soaked in salt I could see, for flavor duh), the salad, the pot roast (YUMMMM), and yeah THE DESSERT! I had the cheesecake topped with some strawberry. Hehehe… I’m a sucker for sweets. Our waitress/​server was Alecia (sorry if I spelled it wrong!), she was very nice.
I did go during a non-​busy time, but I will definitely come back here again. And the smell? To me it was just Pine-​sol smelling haha. Hate it but hey, they’ve gotta keep it clean somehow. Maybe tone it down a little? I read a review that the place smelled like DEAD BODIES. Man, what are you smoking… maybe I just got lucky! But yes, I’m rating it 5 stars because Hometown Buffet is honestly just a great and simple place to catch a quick dinner date with your significant other or friends. Stop expecting so much out of places. It’s not going to be a 100% to your satisfactory all the time. But you know some beg to differ, we’re all entitled to our opinions!

This place sucked worse food ever here. The place smelt like mold meets a dead body smell. The food wasn’t cooked pizza was dough not cooked, stuffing was slimy and food was cold, ham was good I e cream was good. This place is dirty. We won’t return in fear We might catch some diasese here! Clean this place up people running this place! Walk into Palm desert one and that is what u guys should smell n taste like! Yuck.

I enjoy eating here there’s just a few things I wish the person who’s in charge would clean the place up. Dirty carpets. Needs a remodeling job.

I am giving one star because I have to give something to leave my review. We were quite disappointed with our visit, there were no plates and there were three employees standing talking and I had to go over to them and tell them there were no plates then we went to go get our drinks and there were no glasses then there were no napkins the place was just not prepared for customer.
Several of the hot plates were empty and nobody was coming out to fill them up then we went over by the desserts and there were two that were empty totally scrape to the bottom and nobody fill those up. It was quite a disappointing visit. I think next time we’ll just go to the soup plantation. We actually wanted to go to Lucy’s Mexican restaurant that they were closed so we decided to go to the home town buffet but I think it was the wrong decision hope things change we might consider going back and giving it another try.
I thought that we were not allowed to take food out of your facility and there were two people by the hot plates loading up to Styrofoam boxes and walking out with them

The staff at hometown buffet get a 5 for service. They are friendly and attentive. However the food gets a negative 5. The best part of the meal was the salad bar, probably because it was not cooked by anyone. Also the soda was good. That’s all I can say about positives.
I remember this place not being the best but tonight reminded me of why it’s been 10 years since I ate here last.

I came in with some coworkers for lunch. Despite it being the peak hours for a «lunch rush», this place was pretty empty.
Before I get into the «bad», or the «meh», let me acknowledge and extremely hard working, polite, friendly and helpful employee: Andrea. As soon as we sat down, Andrea was quick and polite in introducing herself. Later, while we chatted, Andrea politely interrupted to inform us that some fresh, hot, chicken pot pies were ready, and just placed at the serving station (even though we hadn’t inquired about them, or even knew about them, we were glad to know some fresh hot food was ready). Lastly, as she noticed the majority of our plates were empty (and after quickly cleaning up some of the dirty plates), she came by with chocolate pudding and banana cream pudding in little plastic cups and offered if we’d like to sample some. Everything was done with a kind smile and a politeness you just don’t get at many places like this. Andrea was totally awesome!
Now, on to the food… I mean, it’s Home Town Buffet. I’ve never come here expecting five star cuisine (you just don’t pay enough for it to be… so…I don’t know what people expect out of this place). The food was all decent; nothing was too cold or hot, nothing was amazing or terrible… it was all… food.
My biggest gripe with this Home Town Buffet was the salad bar. You could tell the salad bar hadn’t been tended to in a while as evidenced by the bits of egg in the bacon bin, peas in the corn bin, red bean in the cottage cheese and severe lack of greens and ranch dressing in either ranch bin (I seriously was scraping the bottom of the bin for ranch).
Andrea really helped me «bump» my rating up to a three stars on this place. This place has plenty of regulars, and I hope they continue to treat Andrea right.

I couldn’t believe how limited the selection of food was. There was nothing appetizing and what I did have was not worth the money at all. Cold, bland, unappealing. Will stick with the one on Valley.

Horrible. Food was stale & cold.

Gone this morning the food was good but the place still is dirty and there was a man and employee cleaning the front driveway and walkways with water and left the hose running and here we are in a big drought and they’re just wasting water I don’t understand that oh well I guess they will never learn

We were starving… this isn’t a normal place we would eat but felt we were too hungry for a place that didn’t have a buffet. So I went to get salad and went for the Caesar salad, as I was serving it there was a dead lady bug in it :(not one that had merely flew in and got stuck and died… but a soggy, salad dressing drenched, ladybug. I showed the cashier and she acted like it was the most normal thing ever, and took my plate and basically shooed me away. Needless to say, I lost my appetite completely and suddenly couldn’t think of any thing I’d want to eat less than their food. Instead of offering me my money back or even apologizing they acted like bugs happen all the time. I’m still so grossed out, and so disappointed we paid 15 $ a person when we could’ve went ANYWHERE else and been happier.

Damn what the hell happened?! Maybe nostalgia has clouded my judgement but didn’t HB used to be pretty good back in the day? I’ve been coming on and off every couple of months and each time I leave less impressed. Where do I start?
The price has gone up but so has for errthang else but it’s not really worth it no more. $ 9 for lunch but they don’t even include drinks like they used to. The variety of food has gone down, less and less meat dishes and more random fried veggie like things and bland fish dishes. Quality has also suffered, most of the food just seems bland and uninspired. The only items that hasn’t changed are the fried chicken, mac & cheese, dinner rolls, and desserts. Those items alone aren’t enough to justify me coming here sadly.
Service is okay for the most part, while cleanliness can be improved a tad though it’s not horrible. There are many better options to eat at if you’re in the area. I’m opened minded enough to give HB another chance at another location, though that won’t be for a long time. Childhood me is bummed to the max.

The quality of the food at this location has slowly been decreasing for the past few years. Aside from that, they have also removed features such as the fancy coke machine and the flavor station that held condiments. I continue coming to this location in hopes of better quality but it doesn’t seem to improve. Aside from their macaroni and dinner rolls, the other options are usually dry and too salty. The deserts are a little better and have slightly improved but it does not suffice for the lack in quality of the main options.

We used to eat here a lot because they had vegetarian mushroom gravy! This is a Seventh Day Adventist area. I’m surprised they have removed the vegetarian friendly items from the menu here.
The dessert bar has also shrunk considerably. They set out little dishes instead of allowing self serve.
Our table clearer allowed 5 plates and two bowls to build up before clearing our table. And we are SLOW eaters so dirty plates sat on our table the whole time. That never happened years ago! We probably won’t be back soon. There is a Soup Plantation not far. We will try it next week.
The food we had was fine. Nothing very special. But fine.
This is my first negative review. But I think this place must be slotted to go out of business because they are really letting it run down. Peeling wallpaper over crumbling drywall and torn upholstery? Doesn’t sound like a place that will last much longer. Too bad. We used to love coming here :-(

Ew. Very dirty everywhere you look. My boyfriend and I went around lunch time. Bathrooms r disgusting. And the food is luke warm and half of it is undercooked. The quality is no good I used to love going here but it just seems to have gone downhill in every way. the staff r nice though. Oh ya AND they got rid of their touch screen soda machine :(probably due to lack of business they couldn’t afford to keep it? I think I’ll go to Souplantation from now on when I want to go to a buffet.