Royal Palm Restaurant

This place has closed. Found out on fried chicken/​BBQ rib day. Bummer.
Thursday is the day to come here.

I have gone to this buffet for lunch many times over the past 8 years. It used to be good, with a nice variety of foods. When Caroline was the manager this place was awesome, theme days, diferent foods and all very well cooked and delicious.
In the past months, the buffet has sucked, very little food, what is there is about 1 or 2 pieces of meat if you are lucky, the soup is always empty. There is only 1 waitress to wait on the entire restaurant at lunch time, ridiculous. I think they are trying to go out of business on purpose, because they are not trying at all. The manager not there mentally, when you complain, he just stares at you with a blank look on his face. Sorry, but this is the truth, and I don’t usually complain, but I was compelled with my experiences of late.

Not for nothing, like this place is totally super bad!
I went for the buffet during lunch and had probably one of the worst experiences in recent memory. I came along with coworkers because they had previously eaten here and said it was good. Apparently, Royal Palm has changed since their last visit. My first impression could never have prepared me to predict how bad the overall experience turned out.
I had initially sat down and planned to order off the menu, but when I heard that we could just eat at the buffet, I figured to give it a shot. The buffet is nothing more than four tables. The first table holds some basic salad ingredients. The ingredients didn’t impress me at first glance, and my coworkers mentioned that ingredients were missing (eg: no tomatoes for the salad). I consider myself fortunate for skipping it.
The main buffet section had less than a handful of trays. The first tray was turkey and gravy. The turkey was shoe leather dry. The gravy tasted as if it was out of a jar. Next up was a tray of mashed potatoes. They weren’t bad or good. They were perfectly middle of the road, and surprise, the gravy made a come back as a side for the mashed potatoes! Next up was a tray of rice; long grain white rice with red kidney beans. The rice was ok, a little rough almost as if it was just about to be finished cooking and it was pulled out early. The last tray was. well. empty. A major point of contention in my party. The tray was supposed to have fish, a battered cod. Unfortunately, the cod was never there and the tray was always empty. The waitress claimed the tray was refilled four times, I saw it only once refilled and that was AFTER I had the check in hand. We were there for just about one hour, so I imagine I would have seen it filled more often.
The third table had a nearly empty soup canister, pitas, and hummus. I couldn’t figure out the soup that was there because I was scraping the bottom of the 2 gallon canister. It was white, chunky, and did not appear appealing. The hummus was almost certainly out of a store bought canister; as probably was the pita.
The last table was the dessert table. Cookies (chocolate chip and some other miscellaneous flavors), three cakes (chocolate on chocolate, chocolate on vanilla, red velvet), and brownies were available. There was something else, but I didn’t even bother with it; it appeared to have raisins and there was a sugary looking sauce near it. The brownie was what I would declare as less than box quality, almost as if someone followed the instructions on a box and decided to skip an ingredient or two. The chocolate on chocolate cake tasted like Play-​Dough and not very cakey. Maybe I was eating Play-​Dough? The cookies were alright. I can safely say they probably were hand made because they were oddly shaped.
I really can’t figure out what the chef (or chefs) were doing in the back. They sure weren’t cooking. I would barely call what they were doing as heating up food; because it was barely edible at times. If I was to go to a friend’s house and they served me this level of food, I really wouldn’t blame them because I don’t have many chef friends and I wouldn’t expect chef quality food. On the flip side, if I’m expecting a chef to cook food, I’m expecting them to cook food rather than spending their time heating up poor excuses for food.
When we asked to speak with the manager, we were given his name, William Balthazar, but he never showed up; even after multiple requests to speak with him. I am not one to call someone out, but you need to act like a manager if you will have the title.
The price for the buffet was $ 15 without a soda. Complete rip off for the quality. Sure, it was all I can eat… salad and cakes and cookies and mashed potatoes and rice… I really wouldn’t want to try to call the turkey as all you can eat. I did get to try a small piece of the cod, but frankly, not impressed AT ALL. At least the tap water was free.
Seating in the Restaurant can hold probably 200 people, but I can’t imagine them trying to serve more than 20 people at a given time.
Bottom Line: AVOID. There is NOTHING I can recommend about this food.

This is a buffet establishment on Macy’s third floor that’s extremely popular during the lunch hour in downtown miami (a favorite of office workers apparently).
So they have theme-​days. I went when it was a barbecue day a while back and I was a little confused on how it worked since there was literally a huge thick line that went out of the ‘door’ (aka entryway). And oddly enough, by the time I was eating, there was a huge line to the cashier to pay and then leave.
Just that kind of confusion and such lines were enough to knock off a star.
And then it being a buffet — there are natural pros and cons. Buffet food are generally a mashup of hits and misses. Such mediocrity gets mediocre ratings. But there were good stuff to be had. I just wouldn’t expect the best from this.
And so it loses another star to get to 3 — where it gets A-​OK, the perfect rating for this type of place. It’s neither great nor bad. It is however convenient, being right by the metromover stop at Macy’s.
Ambience — don’t expect much, it felt almost like an exhibition hall with floor to ceiling drapes covering the entire expanse of walls inside, and with merchandises lining the walls just outside of the entrance.
Service — I got the full service with free refills — and it was good.
With many places in downtown, I’ll have a hard time coming back. But for a day of affordable gluttony, this is not a bad option.

Went for lunch today. The hot food changes daily. They had fried chicken today which was very good. They had pork ribs too which were ok. The salad stuff is really good. Soup was not bad either. Good for a quick, reasonably priced buffet lunch.

I might not like Downtown’s Macy but I do love this restaurant. It is a central location for the downtown workaholics like myself. They offer a weekly lunch menu from healthy bites, to a hot meal that will hold you over for 24 hours. If you have a fax machine, you should call them and get on their weekly fax list. They will fax you over their weekly list so you can see what they are offering. I recommend any of the sandwiches. They are all soo good!

This review is for the new Happy Hour Events.
Yes, that’s you read correctly. Macys is now the place to be for Happy Hour! With $ 1 Domestics, $ 2 Imports, $ 3 Wells and $ 4 Calls what could be better?!
There is usually a FREE trail mix bar with, chocolate covered coffee beans, goldfish (every ones favorite) pretzels and a few other tidbits.
There is also usually an inexpensive $ 2 Happy Hour menu that changes from time to time. I have had wings, nachos, hot dogs, and chicken fingers.
Caroline, the Barmaid is a darling and she can really hook up the drinks!
It all starts at 5pm when they dim the lights blast the tunes. and PAR-​TTTAAAYYY!!! And runs till around 7 or 7:30pm.
In the past it has been associated with Macys one day Sales, This week it will be on Friday July 2^nd to kick off the long weekend.
I understand that future Happy Hours will be more constantly held on the last Friday of every month.
So this is surely a Downtown Miami Happy Hour that cant be beat!!!

We have lunch here when we want to treat ourselves. They have a different themed buffet every day (Mon-​Fri). For under $ 11 you get a decent salad bar, full hot buffet with at least 6 items, and the dessert bar (best part!). A beverage is also included with the buffet.
Examples of buffet: Italian day (pastas), Chinese day, Southern day, and sometimes the even have a carving staton.
The restaurant also has a small regular menu for those who aren’t into buffets, and it has some salads, pastas, and sandwiches. In addition to the buffet, there are 2 daily specials which are usually pretty tasty.
This place is located on the 3^rd floor of Macy’s downtown, across the indoor walkway, past the ice cream place.