HomeTown Buffet

This Unilocal is for Carmen and the other Saturday breakfast crew. Thank you for being really nice to my Wife and I the times we were there. We always appreciated your kindness. We are saddened that you are losing your job, but hopefully with your attitude and professionalism you will get a better job with a more stable corporate environment. Glad we stopped in a few weeks back one last time, had I known it was the last time, I would have left you a lot bigger tip. :)
Best of Luck

Local news sites just reported 6 locations closed down as of last night permanently.
I wish the workers best wishes locating new employments. :)

It’s not a bad place! Come on guys, it’s a good buffet restaurant with some awesome fried chicken along with chicken noodle soup.
We come here because we have coupon but we will probably come back and try their breakfast next time!
Service is decent. The guy we had tonight was very nice and pleasant.

We came here for breakfast as we occasionally do… and the food seems to be getting worse. The hollandaise sauce looked more like dishwater and had absolutely no flavor. The omelet guy looked annoyed to be there and barely any choices for my omelet. I’m very disappointed in the food at Hometown recently. The only reason I have 2 stars is because the wait staff gives impeccable service with a smile.
Fix the food Hometown!!! You guys used to be pretty decent about a year ago… your recipes suck now

I’ve been to plenty of HomeTown buffets and this had to be the most disappointing. The food looked and tasted like it’s been sitting for a while and the dishes looked dirty and the glasses tasted like soap. It’s shocking that they served food with dirty dishes.

Rebecca was our waitress! She is good! Food taste, etc were good too… pleasant experience

What can you say about this place other than for the price it’s very good. People here are great too. The reason I took away 2 stars (the rating is relative to price, I’m not saying this place is on par with a Flemings) is because both urinals in men’s room were broken so people were pissing all over the toilet and floors. I went in there to wash my hands before eating and I felt dirtier than when I first walked in. I can still smell it. Hjjhhhjh!!! Whatever. It’s not all the restaurants fault. They should take some of the blame though. This place just missed out on a 5 star rating from me. Ohh yea, one more thing. The deserts here… Not so good. Tastes like they make things with oil not cream.
I feel like all I’ve been writing about is bad. The good: chicken roasted was very good and so were the green beans and corn. Again for the price it’s not bad. Just wait until they fix the men’s room.

Having been requested by family to meet for lunch on Sunday after Church, my wife and I came to join them.
When we arrived at 11:30 their was no one at the counter we had to wait 10 min before even one person showed up to let us pay.
PROBLEM #1 — lunch for 2 including drinks was $ 31.00, because after 11:00am it is aparently dinner time. I was unaware that 11:01 am was the new official dinner time on Sundays.
PROBLEM #2 — all the food was terrible with one exception, the orange chicken was mildly decent, it tasted like it came straight out of the box. The rice was instant rice. The mac ‘n’ cheese was flavorless. These were the only foods that didn’t make us want to vomit.
PROBLEM #3 — The staff was rude from the moment we entered the door to the moment we finally escaped.
ZERO STARS!!!

The food is not what it used to be. The pizza was stale. Other foods like the Mac n cheese and chicken was nasty. We went to go to the soft serve machine and there were at least 5 workers sitting nearby, just chatting. When we tried the soft serve machine it splattered on us and THEN the workers tells us the soft serve machine doesn’t work. Like obviously wow. I know for sure they saw us walk over to get ice cream, they could have warned us. Almost all of the dishes had at least one piece of food left over on it. I was honestly disgusted and irritated by this visit. I am not going to return.

I only came here because my grandparents wanted to come here. ugh.
Well I’ll make a list:
1. Dirty plates! I grabbed 5 different plates, wet with particles on it. So I surrendered & walked to the other side to get some — what decent salad plates.
2. Stale pizza, bland mac n cheese, paper tasting desserts, etc etc… the list can go on. Food sucked. Tastes like budget cafeteria food.
&
3. BROKEN soft serve machine. After my crap food I was hopeful for decent soft serve. NOPE.
So there were about 5 workers just sitting & hanging out at a table next to the desserts. I walk over to the machine, ready to get some soft serve, then BOOM! White liquid splatters everywhere! Wth!
With disappointed on my face, one of the sitting & observing workers say «oh, sorry it’s not working, I’ll tell the manager. .». and I’m standing there pissed off.
Like mother fcker, there are FIVE of you workers sitting at the table. ONE of you could have warned me before I touched the damn thing?
I’m done. No thanks.

I do not like this Hometown Buffet. Food isn’t appetizing at all. The Mexican food is salty, cold and the tacos are hard. I think the chicken pot pie was the only descent food I are. I would rather go to a real Asian buffet in Miramar Road or Soup Plantation. The owners should care about what they are serving. They should hire a good cook/​chef.

We only came here because we had a coupon and I was craving soup plantation– first mistake. The salad bar was wilted lettuce and not much choices to put on my salad. When I got to the normal food after my salad I found that all of the food, was tasteless, rubbery, cold and kept trying to find something I could eat. My fiancé had just had surgery and was doped up and hadn’t eaten in 24 hours so he tried everything he could but found no choices either that were satisfying. Poor guy but it was good humor.
I found the price of 24.80 with coupon and two drinks expensive for what we got.
The place was almost empty and our plates were not cleared the whole time we were there by our server Rebecca.
I wanted to take the survey from my receipt to give this review and could not find the store number so I called the store or restaurant if you call it that, and spoke to Lloyd. Lloyd told me that he was very sorry and also that if I wanted to come back in he would try make it right my response to that was why would I want to come back in there why would I waste my time and he said for a free meal personally I’d like my money back but since that is it going to happen I’m hoping that Lloyd took my advice to fix up the salad bar and maybe have a night of something that I can actually eat and not go home and be sick however, maybe the man will be on his painkillers and will enjoy it because it’s all about feeding the man and me not having to cook
I was hoping that the restaurant was more like old country buffet like they had back in Minnesota but I just have to say it was really sad and nothing what I expected not even the desserts were good.

Quality of food here has been getting worse and worse. I’ve been coming here since I was about 2 – 3, I’m 20 now. This is how the chicken noodle soup comes out. The chicken is raw. Their entire pot had the chicken raw. My dad complained of his chicken tenders being too hard. Management needs to do better. This was one of my favorite spots.

We visit the San Diego area often because we have family in that region. In the past, I took the kids to Hometown because of the fun atmosphere, the selection and the food was pretty good, especially for being a buffet. In past years, we might visit Hometown a couple of times during our trips.
This time, it was a huge disappointment! The cost for 5 people was over $ 60. The food that was offered was not of high quality, the fried and baked chicken were tasteless and rubbery. There was no meat out besides the sad looking chicken except for some cuts of sausage pieces. There was baked fish and a gravy that they called chicken and dumplings. I tried the chicken noodle soup and the predominant flavor was vinegar. Sadly, I kept trying to find something tasty to eat and tried a seafood pasta salad from the salad bar. I took a bite and bit into something that felt like and resembled a rock. That was it. We, in no way, got $ 60 worth of food.
I am afraid that Hometown, a former favorite, is «off the list!»

I’m going to be fair and rate this as 3 stars since the food were decent when we came here today for lunch after hiking 6 miles in Escondido. The food for us were good and tasty (and yes we were hungry… or starving) i liked the sweet and sour chicken and the chili with their rice so i was a happy camper. The crew were also nice and tries to accommodate their guests as much as possible but one of our friends who normally dine at a Home Town Buffet told us that they don’t have as much variety at this location, but food-​wise they’re ok. We don’t expect casino quality variety anyways. They only have one type of pasta for kids or for pasta lovers and they have a huge buffet table for that which makes it look «empty». Overall it was a good and filling experience, plus the military discount :-)

Bad food yo! Can’t believe this, we are in 2015, in the world of good food and Unilocal… People are friendly but! No! No! Food is bed!

How would I start my feedback? Here’s what it goes.
I previously rated this place 4 stars. However, time flies and it seems the management are getting worst.
First they increased the price. (you increase the price for what?)
But how about the food? We came here Sunday dinner night with the family. And guess what? They dont have variety of food to offer. And on top of that, the cashier crew offered us a beverages. Honestly I always drink just plain water. So, we gave it a try. I was surprised when they dont have any kind of juice besides soda, slurpies and COFFEE/​TEA. I asked one of the server why they didn’t refill the juice containers anymore then she told me that «juice was served only for breakfast, really?. I was thinking why would they offer coffee at night and juice for breakfast, its kinda weird, is in it?
About the food, mediocre nothing special.
The only shining star for this place was the crew server named Joe. He was kind, nice and friendly. He was polite and always ask people if they need something just call him. All the servers are hardworking employees. But the management, they need to put up more effort.
To the management of hometown buffet, if you read my feedback. Kindly treat this as an advice.
If you gonna increase your price atleast, give your customers a satisfaction.(drinks should be free and included, offer more variety of food) in that way, you can keep your customers as a regular.
As my experience, definitely I will NOT come back to this place and sorry to say that furthermore, I am strongly NOT recommended this place anymore to all Unilocalers.

Been here many times before, and every time, I try to be optimistic that it’s going to be a good visit, and every time, I’m disappointed. It’s a pretty big place, so it’s really great for big groups, but other than that, I can’t really find anything else that’s good about this buffet. The tables aren’t cleaned quickly, the floors are dirty most of the time, and the glasses, cups, and utensils always run out and aren’t filled in a timely manner.
The food is average at best. It almost seems like no effort has been made to make them taste good. During my last visit, I only liked the baked chicken out of all the things I tried. What sucks more is that there aren’t many choices to choose from. The dessert bar has a few selections, still mediocre at best.
I try to avoid going here, unless I really have to.

Went to this place for a big group Secret Santa buffet (20ish people). This place was the only one that allowed such huge amount of people (since this is an annual thing). Plus there’s a half off dinner price if you bring another person so the price of this buffet is $ 6. Which is extremely cheap for a buffet but I would rather take the $ 6 for something else tbh.
The soup is very bland. There’s not a flavor in the food at all. Everything seems greasy. even the creamed corn.
The only good thing here is maybe the steak and sausages and ice cream…

New review, new management, bad experience.
The family came here to celebrate my Mom’s birthday for breakfast. The coupons helped bring the group price down a bit but… for what?
The omelet line was long, food wasn’t be refilled in a timely manner (lots of empty food trays with people walking around with empty plates, waiting), the ice cream machine wasn’t working and the place was seriously understaffed.
So, was it worth the coupons and the hassle? Probably not.
I should’ve walked away when I saw the long line coming out the front door.
I definitely believe that Hometown’s better days have passed it by, even with it’s new CEO promising «improvements» in his commercials.
I’m forcing my family to go to IHOP next time.