Homestead Steak House

Salad bar was very nice and full of goodies. The cheese slice was an added extra! I was pleasantly surprised and happy, until my meal arrived. I ordered a small ribeye medium. It arrived over well done. The server never came back to see how our meal was. I had to flag down another server, who immediately took the steak away, left me the baked potato in tin foil with no plate to put it on. I waited for another steak, that came back rare! Very rare! They sent another woman over and she offered to get me another steak but by that time my dinner date was finished with his meal. I said to not bother bringing another steak, I’ll take it home and cook it myself! The lady said she would take care of this. Yup, she took care of it! A MEASLY $ 5.00 OFF MY DINNER AND A FREE DESERT! I get home and my chocolate pie looks like someone took a bite out of it! I can’t believe this place has the audacity to charge for a dinner I couldn’t enjoy at their establishment with my dinner date. My first time here… and my last. I will never go back. I would have gone back and given this place a second chance if I hadn’t been charged for a steak they would have had to throw away anyway. At least my dog will have a good dinner, because that’s all this steak was good for.

It’s been a few years since we’ve been here and decided to come for Easter for their buffet. It’s was busy as can be and we were so glad we got there early as we watched the food line get longer and longer by the minute!
Unlike some of the reviews, we enjoy the food and the décor. The first time we ever ate there we were seated on a recreated front porch. We enjoyed it so much we ask to sit there every time! They actually have two porches, but we prefer the one that looks out over the main dining area. It’s complete with stairs made of stone, railing, and even a tin roof overhead, as well as stained glass windows. Speaking of stained glass there are lots of stained glass hanging lamps throughout the restaurant, which added to the wood and fireplaces it really makes it a comfortable and homey place!
The Sunday buffet is about $ 13.00, which includes your drink. There’s a make your own salad, plus a seven layer salad, fruit salad, and usually a macaroni salad and pasta salad. There’s a number of vegetables and sides to choose from like butter beans, green beans, mashed potatoes (they added sweet pickles for a very unusual flavor!) and several meat choices like fried chicken, ham, beef tips, and turkey and dressing. There’s two sides to the buffet line and both side have just about the same choices except maybe one or two different salads, veggies, sides and meat choices. At the end of the buffet are a variety of desserts to choose from.
The service is prompt and most of the wait staff is very friendly. Since it was Easter and so busy the staff was running their tails off and didn’t have a lot of time for conversation, but normally will stop and chat if you want.
I’ve only been for the Sunday buffet so can’t speak to the regular menu or the seafood buffet they have on Friday nights, but would like to give it a try.

My steak was fantastic! The salad bar is extensive, but no vinaigrette. Who doesn’t have vinaigrette in this day and age??? The service was slow, very slow. It would be nice if they brought out appetizer plates with the appetizer.
Some steaks are just so good, that it’s hard to stop eating it. Their steak is good. Even if the sides were bad, I’d come back just for the steak.

We dined here this evening at around 5pm as a party of 10 for my husbands birthday, we were seated in a VERY!!! secluded back room, on pop-​up picnic style tables, with sticky table cloths thrown over, myself and a few others could not even scoot all the way to the table to eat. Very uncomfortable. And as we walked through to the salad bar (which was a hike! With two children) we all noticed beautifully decorated tables in the dinning room. When we ordered and a few asked questions about the menu i. e «how are the twice baked potatoes» our server responded «there left over potatoes» or «describe the wild rice» and his response was «it’s uncle bens». Our menus were printed out photocopies of the menu, not a very good first impression. A good note about the evening is the food was delicious. So back of the house defiantly knows how to represent a good product. As a server myself I pride myself on great customer service and taking pride in what I do and where I work and I can sadly say I don’t think I’ll return to the homestead. Which is disheartening as I’ve always heard great things about it. For $ 200+ I expected much more hospitality, to be seated in the dining room like a member of society, and a real menu not a cheap photocopy.

The staff was quite friendly, the décor open and homey. A decent salad bar (sadly only iceberg, no Romaine) with plenty of accessories. The food, however, is sadly lacking. Not much appeared to be made in-​house, seemed to be prepackaged restaurant supply type stuff. They seem proud of their steaks, maybe those are better.

I took my wife, son and grandson here to celebrate her birthday. It is an out of the way location. This is a down home style restaurant. The salad bar is self serve and it has many selections so you will be able to fill your plate. The veggies were fresh and pretty tasty. My wife and I ordered filets, our son and grandson ordered a T bone steaks. The steaks were high quality but slightly over cooked. The accompaniments were very good. The server was very attentive keeping the drinks topped off and asking if we needed anything. This is a good alternative to Angus Barn, ²⁄₃ the cost but 80% of the quality. I think the bill was about $ 140 before tip. Mostly locals dining there so I am sure it is considered upscale to them. We will probably return.

Great place to have incredibly home cooked food!
Love the Homestead and the owners. An excellent salad bar, great variety on menu and buffet, this place is a treat to go to. Food is always fresh! And to top it off, their hot fudge cake is the best dessert ever.

Love this place. Great food and service. Owners are very attentive and provide great atmosphere! Good for all occasions with private rooms available!

If you want to go to a country-​style buffet with some other stuff available from the kitchen, that’s decorated inside like a 1990s Baptist church, this is the place for you. It looks like a barn from the outside, and the signs leading to it need some tending, but inside it was significantly nicer with wood paneling and slate fireplaces. Despite being weary based on reviews of the «gift shop», its not a significant affair like Cracker Barrel. On the spectrum of country restaurants labeled by city folk, this place lies somewhere just above Cracker Barrel and Golden Corral.
The service started off really slow to get drinks, probably being the longest time I’ve ever waited for an ever-​favorite Diet Pepsi. If you order from the menu, be prepared to wait; I was more than half-​way through my plate from the buffet before my wife’s dish came out from the kitchen. The staff is however friendly and patient with kids, which is a significant plus.
The seafood buffet was all fried: oysters, cod, flounder, and shrimp. It also included a few other old-​style favorites: macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, a pasta and other assorted items. The cod and flounder flakes well, and came in sizable pieces. The shrimp tasted fishy, so it could use some work.
Keeping with my tradition of cole slaw reviews, I’d say this has one of the better recipes. A good balance between feel-​good sweet and make you feel better leafy greens is executed with a delicate and loving country touch. It was the only time I’ve ever gotten seconds on cole slaw.

I really want to like Homestead. It is 15 minutes from our home. Last evening (3-​15-​2014) we arrived around 5:00 PM hoping to beat the crowd and we were seated immediately, looked like our plan was working Our server Lucas was great. He waited on us immediately and took our order back within 5 minutes of our being seated. Salad bar as usual had a lot of items and we always enjoy it… but…then the wait… and we waited… and waited… and waited… did I say we had to wait for our food? Lucas was attentive and stopped by to check our drinks and apologized again and again. At one point he checked with the kitchen and came back to say «5 more minutes». And we waited and waited… a total of 56 minutes to get our order. We felt sorry for Lucas. Eventually the owner’s wife came over to apologize and blame the delay on the kitchen being backed up because of a party. OK, Homestead, this is NOT the first time this has happened to us and we would not have visited this time if we had not been given a gift card for our dinner. Stop it! Either close to the public and cater parties for your business or expand the kitchen so you can handle parties out of a different set of line cooks so that the rest of us don’t have to suffer. Its a shame, I give the food 4 stars but when you have to wait almost an hour for the food nothing tastes good enough to cover the frustration.
If you want to go and get your food in a timely manner, go around 4:00 PM or around 7:30 PM. That way you will not be affected by a party.
Unless we get another gift card, we won’t go back.

This is a GREAT place to eat. Their salad bar is the best I have ever had. Everything on it is always fresh and delicious and they keep it spotless. I usually get the small filet cooked medium. It always comes out spot-​on doneness and delicious. We live on the outskirts of Burlington, so it takes us 40 minutes to get there, but it is well worth the drive. We go about every weekend. Don’t understand the negative reviews, these people’s tastebuds must be desensitized from eating the mediocre food from the chain steak houses. Homestead was even featured in «Our State» magazine.

If you’re under 60 years old don’t bother.
The quality of the food was that of a assisted living home, I was surprised not to see one attached to the restaurant.
The salad bar plates were not clean and at the end they had slices of cheese on styrofoam plates with a sign «one slice per customer.»
There are also no specials or sandwiches served in the month of December.

We took our parents Friday for their seafood specialty dinners. We started with the crab dip, fried mushrooms and crab cakes. The roumelade sauce was spicy and flavorful. The crab cakes were okay, premade, possibly frozen. The folks liked the salad bar but I was not impressed. Iceberg lettuce, canned and processed veggies, Store bought potatoe and macaroni salad. Portions were large. Sautéed and broiled scallops were very good. I asked for rare prime rib and it came medium. Good bottled beer selection. Poor wine selection. Chocolate cake tasted like frozen store bought similar to Sara Lee, dry and tasteless. Filet mignon was good. Fried oysters were good. Sweet potatoe was good. Nothing too great but nice if you don’t feel like cooking for yourself.

We tried this place because we were in the area & got hungry. I really enjoyed the seafood & my boyfriends smothered steak was amazing. The portions were huge & the prices were not bad. The salad bar was amazing. I really enjoyed it.
Our waitress was really nice & helpful. She gave a few suggestions & made sure we were happy at all times.
We will be back.

Whelmed. Not overwhelmed. Not underwhelmed. Just whelmed.
I get dragged back to Homestead a couple of times a year by my partner, who loves the fried oysters. I prefer my oysters raw and at a restaurant near the ocean, so I’ll always get a steak. Each time I think «Maybe it will be better this time.» and each time it isn’t.
Homestead is located in rural Timberlake, off the beaten path, in an enormous barn-​like building. You enter (and leave) through a gift shop. The décor is Rustic Country — you are surrounded by wood. You won’t find a painted surface anywhere. You’ll see cutesy country paintings of old shacks, quilts, and barnyard animals, old jugs and stained glass propped here and there, vines with tiny white christmas tree lights in them, and two massive fireplaces overdecorated in accordance with whatever season it is. The night we went it looked like a flag factory threw up on both of them. There was a mass of red, white and blue «stuff» covering every inch of available space.
You’ll also see blue haired church people, people on scooters, women who think it’s OK to wear flip-​flops to a steak restaurant, and men who wear cowboy hats at the table.
My partner ordered the fried oysters and asked the waitress to hold the hush puppies (he doesn’t do carbs). She told him the kitchen would put them on there anyway so «just don’t eat them.» I thought that was odd, but, um, OK. He loved the oysters, but the veggies were deffinitely from a can. I ordered the small filet mignon with the twice baked potato casserole. The steak was cooked correctly (medium rare) but lacked any real seasoning. The potato casserole was served warm and was just … blah and heavy. The salad bar had all the standard salad bar things. The service was friendly and unobtrusive.
There’s nothing really –bad– about Homestead it’s just that there’s no real reason to make a special trip out there.
*shrug*

Family went here on Saturday night and it was (as it always is) GREAT! Very nice to get way from the typical chain restaurants with televisions mounted on the walls. Very family oriented and great for special occasions or Church groups (make a reservation)
Food is outstanding and if you do have an issue with it, they correct its with no hassle. But what sells this place is the salad bar which comes with most meals and most of the time you can make a meal off that.
Only thing I would recommend is come early on Saturdays and on (Father’s Day and Mother’s day) if you have a large party get a reservation. We always do and you never see us sitting outside like half of North Carolina did this past Saturday night.

We had heard the locals rave about The Homestead for years, so when we had a chance to go to celebrate a birthday with friends, we were anticipating a wonderful dining experience. We ended up being sorely disappointed.
The birthday girl (my lady) ordered the hot crab dip as an appetizer, and it arrived dry, firm, and luke warm, not hot. It was also flavorless. The pita chips that were intended to be used as a scoop for the dip were stale.
Three out of four entrees were inproperly cooked. The prime rib was ordered rare, arrived medium-​well, and was sent back, only to be replaced by a cut that was medium-​rare at best. My T-​bone was also ordered rare, and arrived cooked medium. I would have sent it back as well, but decided not to because I was hungry. It was tough and flavorless. I ordered the twice baked potato casserole as my side dish, and it was barely warm and flavorless. After I added salt and pepper to it, I could taste a rancid background flavor.
One of our guests ordered the chicken tenders which arrived dry, and cold. The accompanying fries appeared to still be frozen inside. There was also no catsup on the table, nor was there any sort of dipping sauce served with the tenders. Our other guest ordered the Cajun Catfish, which he said was good. Oh, I almost forgot — I ordered the fried oysters as a side to my steak. They were dry and cold, and the dipping sauce that was served with them was unremarkable.
I’ve seen better chicken tenders at the ballpark, I’ve had a better steak on my grill, and I expect the twice baked potato casserole will make some diners ill. The steaks were clearly assembly line jobs, and the side dishes were clearly not made to order, but frozen days earlier, and reheated for service.
Our server was inattentive, our entrees were served about the same time we got back from the salad bar, the food was bad to disgustingly bad. The fact that so many Personians love the place just goes to show that the people here have no idea what good food tastes like.
If you want to strap on the feed bag and don’t care how your food looks, tastes, or is prepared, then this is the place for you.
We won’t be going back.

While having lunch at a Unilocal-​rated BBQ restaurant nearby, a couple at the next table suggested we try Homestead, and particularly for their Sunday buffet. Unilocal said «pretty good», so… Sunday morning, we drove the 25 miles up beautiful & relaxing Rt 501 toward Roxboro, turning off toward Timberlake. By the way, you do NOT just drop in on this place… it’s off the primary road, as in RURAL… but an amazing place. Very barn-​like with fresh red & white paint and a wonderful farm look… and it’s BIG… both the venue as well as the menu. The normal fare here is steak & seafood; but, the Sunday buffet was wonderful. Absolutely everything we tried was top-​notch, from the salads, fruit, fried chicken, beef, fresh vegetables, breads, beverages and desserts. The service was friendly, prompt, and provided excellent followup to assure you had everything you wanted. The price was an amazing $ 12 plus tip for the buffet (less mid-​week). In summary, it was a wonderful break from city fare and well worth the drive… and we’ll be back to try steak & seafood… as for the buffet, we might make it a monthly pilgrimage!

TWO & ONE HALF STARS:
Think of this of this place like Tad’s with the ambiance of Cracker Barrel. Homestead seems to cater to the locals and is probably one of the better restaurants in the area. Which may not say much depending how you look at it. They need to work on their grilling and cutting. As in, cut the steak evenly so it cooks evenly and is presentable. As far as taste goes, the ribeye was okay. Like I say, Tad’s quality. And there’s nothing wrong with Tad’s. They make a decent steak for the money. But Homestead charges a «tad» more than what’s appropriate, IMO. The salad bar is sparse but passable, and the sodas flow freely.
I am impressed ithw their outdoor space used for bands on the weekends. Immense, with tons of comfortable seats. I didn’t stick around to see the band, so I can’t comment on it. I also don’t know if alcohol is served. But is laying back, drinking iced tea and listening to a live band on a nice North Carolina night that bad?

No surprise this place hasn’t been reviewed; after all, it’s hard to convince yourself to venture into Timberlake??? It is a drive for most, but it’s not a bad place to visit at least once.
Pretty much situated in a location where it depends on the support of local white collar folk. Basically a large barn that is connected to a gift shop (called the Festival Barn). The inside of the restaurant is pretty large; and they are usually always jam packed, especially during the weekends. I suggest reservations if you want to dine anywhere from Thurs-​Sun.
I’ll get flamed for this, but this place is better than Angus Barn by a mile. Their cuts aren’t as chosen, but for the value for dollar, they outscore the Barn, bar none. Personally, I don’t like paying for steak (always better at home), but theirs is pretty decent, and prices are very reasonable. But then again, you have to ask yourself if the cost of driving to this locale is worth the cost offset, considering the price of petrol as of late.
The atmosphere is lax; you don’t have to dress up here. And get this, they allow brown bagging! Wicked! Enjoy your steak and get your whiskey/​the like on! I haven’t ventured outside of their red meat, but their ribeye has been consistent. And they know the concept of Pittsburgh rare; excellent.
They have a salad bar; standard fare, but the vegetable have always been fresh everytime I have visited. They also have a cheese bar (which used to be more extensive, but I guess either people abused the policy/wasn’t popular enough).
Be sure to try their chocolate cake for dessert. Divine. One of those places worth venturing out if you feel like going for a drive (not the most scenic one, but relaxing nonetheless).