HomeTown Buffet
| Address: | 517 Maine Mall Rd, South Portland, ME 04106, USA |
| Phone: | +1 207-775-2956 |
| Site: | locations.buffet.com |
| Rating: | 3 |
| Working: | 11AM–8:30PM 11AM–8:30PM 11AM–8:30PM 11AM–8:30PM 11AM–9PM 8AM–9PM 8AM–8PM |
Location
Photos 81
Reviews 7
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DiDi Hern
This place is AWFUL!! I had to get a refund. Where do I start? 1. The cashier had a problem with every customer. She didnt know how to ring up gift cards, discounts, etc 2. Cashier told wrong prices for drinks. Kept stating drinks were $0.99. Instead they were $2.89 PLUS $0.99 if you wanted to take a drink with you. 3. We came in for 2 to-go buffets, paid, and got these cheap plastic containers which are for cold desserts, not hot food. Then we asked for bags so we wouldnt burn our hands. They said we couldnt have bags until we came back to checkout, but didnt explain why. 4. There was NO food on the buffet. 85% of the spots were empty. Mind you this was Sunday around 5, so dinner time. The little food that was there was old and dry. Nothing fresh. I asked if I could get fresh food. The guy said the cook is also the manager and he was helping girl at register do split payment and didnt know how long til fresh food would be put out. Ummm 5. The last straw was when we asked for lids for the to go cups and they didnt have any. How do you expect to sell to go drinks with no lids. Who would want to take that in their car. After 30mins and still no food, and then hearing this, I was pissed. I asked for a refund. Another really lazy female manager came out from the back then and tried to explain about being short staffed. That means she shouldve been on the register or on the grill trying to help the place instead of sitting in the office as all 3 employees on the floor were clueless. She seemed just as clueless. This is the WORSE experience ever and Im thinking of contacting their head office. Its just unacceptable.
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Robert Didato
We are traveling to Portland this week, and after many days of seafood we decided to have something more casual. Back home, Hometown buffet had closed years ago and after seeing it down the road decided to go. This was a terrible mistake. The place was empty nearly, never a good sign. The employees looked like they were being forced to work, not a single smile or happy person could be found. We had to go by several booths to even find one that had been cleaned. These all aside could be dealt with if the food was good. It was not. It was absolutely awful. The baked potatoes were almost like rocks, the "garlic bread" was just heavily toasted bread with some garlic powder on it. The sausage was just gross, the Mexican food was worse then poorly prepared Taco Bell fast food. The Mac and cheese wasnt heated fully and was hard and flavorless. The mashed potatoes were surprisingly very good, as was the rolls. Unfortunately that was all I found to be good. I wont continue on because most else was just barley edible and flavorless. The food appeared to be prepared with the same enthusiasm as the place showed, none. This awful meal cost us $32.14 which, if the food was decent, is a fair price. I feel swindled and shamed to have gone there and eaten. If this is the quality that Hometown Buffet has gotten down to, I dont see how you can possibly stay open. My girlfriend and I agree that this is the worse buffet we have ever been to.
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Snooj Dowdy
If your goal is to stuff as much food of questionable quality into your face as possible, this is a great place to go. The food is not particularly high quality, the dessert bar received a ghetto overhaul when they took over from Old Country Buffet (seriously, Fruity Pebbles is not a valid ice cream topping) and the best dishes, such as orange chicken, are frequently waiting to be replenished. At $12/adult, its not particularly cheap, either. For far less than that and less than a mile away you can get a scrumptious 5 Guys burger ($6), a full Red Robin meal with bottomless fries ($11), a healthy Chipotle burrito ($8), and have confidence that youre not eating straight out of a tin can from Sysco. Somehow my family keeps responding to the Sirens call of all-you-can-eat and we end up there, and *every single time* we regret it. The fresh baked chocolate chip cookies are pretty good. However, I took one home once and ate it cold and it did not taste like food.
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Heather K
You said to describe our GREAT experience at hometown, Id be lying if I told you it was great! Terrible,Terrible,Terrible! Everything was bone dry,desserts over sweet and dry...if you are even lucky to get dessert,because they are always out of everything or take forever to put it out! The ice cream area is always a mess, and they are always out of the ice cream too! The steak at the carving station has flavor..BUT, the texture of cardboard! The soup is always so thick,stuck to the bottom of the pan and/or scorched! The selection has dwindled thru the years! The best salads,fruits food and meats are now gone! The bath room is always a mess! The manager is an old jerk! The cashiers and table cleaners are the only pleasant thing there! We go back each time hoping things will get better or go back to the old way...BUT, never does!!! Not giving it a chance anymore!!!!
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Rose Gaddy
It always HAD BEEN our favorite place to go and we invited friends along. I must say it has continually disappointed us in the past few months. We live on a limited budget so are very careful about how we use our money for entertainment .HomeTown Buffet was always at the top of the list but we have found that it takes a long time for the empty buffet dishes to be refilled and many times we get there we only find scrapings on the bottom of the pans and have to wait for more to be delivered after we tell someone they are empty. By the time we get a plate of food, inevitably most of it is cold because weve had to wait to get everything on the plate. Very disappointing and we are hoping it will improve. Until then, we certainly wont invite friends there and may not go there ourselves. We have kept checking it from time to time, hoping for improvements..
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Cat Astrophied
The service was very nice, there was a huge amount of seating, several choices. The food wasnt mindblowingly fantastic but it was pretty good and a good selection. Yes, some stuff had been there a bit (like any buffet) but during our visit, everything was refreshed. Like any buffet restaurant, you want to go when the food is just changed over, which should happen during a normal dinner. We went at a dinner time which is also the best time for buffet restaurant. One star is lost merely because it could have had slightly cleaner tables and a slightly faster change rate on the meals under the heat lamps. We thought the food was very good as well as the selection, staff is very polite and helpful. Would recommend for families or if you just want to stuff your face with as much as possible one night. ;)
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Rhonda Williams
We were there for a birthday dinner as a party of 15. Another family was in the room when we got there and we very disrespectful with their language and their unruly children. Our meal ended abruptly when one of their children vomited all over the floor. After paying almost $200 for 15 people to eat I expected the manager to come apologize and make things right but that never happened. The only one to apologize was the woman bussing tables and she was gagging also. Very bad experience at this restaurant. Cant contact them because when you hit the contact button it tells you that the site is not up and running (not a surprise tho). I will be contacting them tomorrow.
