HomeTown Buffet

This HTB is closed. I hope the former employees find a better job!

Great selections at a fair price. Very friendly staff and clean establishment. Fresh salad bar which offers all the toppings for you to create the salad of your desire.

Food here is low quality and disgusting!!! Prices are expensive, service sucks! Don’t go here throw place blows and should be shut down!

My opening complaint may seem petty but in this day and age $ 8.00 is $ 8.00. My wife and I walked into the restaurant and as we walked up to the register to pay for lunch, there was no one there. A few minutes later a pretty Asian girl walked up to help us (remember the «pretty» part for later in the story).
My wife asked for two lunches and were informed that lunch ended at 4PM and it was now dinner time. It was 3 minutes after 4PM. I looked at her and said it was lunch when my wife and I walked up to the counter and you weren’t here to help us. She refused to admit being in the wrong, so instead of making a big deal out of it, we paid the $ 12.99 dinner price as opposed to the $ 8.99 lunch price. And even though nothing on the buffet bars had been changed.
That’s right, they were still serving the lunch food, nothing had been freshened. The enchiladas were dried out as was the taco meat. The ribs were like rubber. An easy way to tell pans have been in the tables is by looking at just how hard the food has crusted around the edges of the pans. An boy-​o-​boy was it hard. And here is the strangest thing. They were serving steamed baby carrots that tasted like bleach. I’m not sure what that was all about so I just didn’t eat them. In all fairness, I will say the salad bar seemed pretty fresh. I ended my meal with a bite from a small piece of dried chocolate cake.
Ok, remember in the first part of my review I asked you to remember the «pretty» I mentioned? Throughout our entire experience, we sat there and watched the register girl step away from the register and into the front of a mirrored wall where she would continually check herself out. That alone was worth the extra $ 4.00 per person we paid. LoL.
Signed,
Your Unilocal Fanatic… Gary

There’s nothing delicious, except maybe some desserts… My daughter informed me that the ladies restroom is gross… Come here because coupons and times… This is a great place to go if you don’t like tasty food, great place to go if you are a smoker, and lost your taste buds,. Great place to go if you want to soft bland foods.

Awful and the staff is BEYOND rude. Not even sure how they stay open. Someone please do something about the staff, the cleanliness, and the ability to order correctly. Our senior citizens deserve a better maintained place to eat.

We come here for lunch or dinner, the food is good and soup is delicious. Salad is fresh. Servers are really nice. We enjoyed and I recommend it to all.
I hope they remodel the space and have new, nice, and cleaner utensils.
By the way stake and chicken was very tender. Good Chiefs.

I should have wrote a review when the food selection was great. It has gone down hill this year. No more steak which was delicious. The roast beef is always over cooked or raw. The menu items don’t taste as good as they used to. Not sure why it all taste like canned food now. They need to make it more adult friendly like bringing back tasty meats.
They took down all of the booth and table separators which were curtains to make it look more homey and private. Now you walk into the restaurant and lights are blasting on high and it looks like you are in the spotlight for everyone to see and eating in the middle of a K-​Mart store. Not my kind of atmosphere at all. Just cold and sterile like a hospital. The prices are not spectacular so really no reason to eat here anymore. My kids love it but that’s because they can walk up and get their own food.

I used a Groupon for this restaurant the first time and all went well. I went a second and third time trying to use another purchased Groupon and it was not accepted. I felt embarrassed and was in an awkward position, getting dirty stares from customers behind me, and looked at by the clerk as I was a criminal. The food was just OK, so so, I have had MUCH better. I will not be returning, and definitely will not be recommending this place to friends, family, and other Unilocal users.

This place is a solid 3 stars average. The food is ok, but doesn’t really stand out, aside from the (I think) Orange Chicken, but you do get what you pay for. Looking at their nutrition facts and ingredients doesn’t help, as trans fat is present in AT LEAST 25% of their foods, especially their desserts. Tbh, I’d go to Souplantation if I had the choice. My family and I just came here to celebrate a birthday. Overall, this place is fine for what it is, but I’d look somewhere else.

Went here for lunch it was OK. I had a coupon by email for $ 5.95 lunch which is about $ 2.50 off the normal price.
The salads was good but hot foods and other choices was not anything special to speak of.
They had certain selections which were not bad, including baked white fish, rotisserie chicken, taco /​nacho bar, grilled sausage, mac and cheese, spaghetti and also pepperoni pizza which looked like $ 3 frozen pizza from the store. I had chicken soup which had the consistency of gelatinous goo and the taste was not surprisingly, too salty and had a slight MSG quality. There were also breads and other selections I pretty much skipped past. And some chinese chicken dish which was kinda odd. But other than tacos no meat (beef) to speak of, not even burgers or hot dogs which surprised me.
Dessert had a fair amount of choices but I don’t really eat dessert. Soft serve is probably the way to go but there’s other kinds if you prefer cake, cookies, brownies, etc.
Drinks were good, for $ 2.50 you get unlimited soft drinks, coffee, cappuccino machine, and even (drumroll)… Icee! Yum.
Plates and utensils were clean but the plates were very very wet on the bottom. And they ran out of forks in the main area at one point… keep in mind the place was only half full. But plates were cleared off my table very quickly every time I got up.
I’d go back but only for dinner or brunch. And only if I had another coupon. I dunno if this location is too small and that’s just why they don’t have good choices or what… but I was pretty much done eating in 30 minutes and nothing else I wanted. I’ll just go to another place… probably S_​_​_​_​_​_​_​n next time.

I ate here quite a while ago, because some of my family members had some cheap coupons. Well, I guess you get what you pay for.
When even the pasta and fried potato smilies are bad, you know something’s gone wrong. I couldn’t take more than a few bites of an enchilada. Stale hashbrowns and other potato items. I guess the fried chicken drumsticks were alright, if salty. I had never eaten cardboard before, but then I tried their «prime rib.»
The waitress attending to the tables was helpful though, I guess.

So. So. SO BAD.
Kids were arguing about what they wanted for dinner, so we found the buffet; we figured it’d have something for everyone. Luckily for us, it DID! It had: dirty plates and utensils, dirty/​stained dining room furniture, grease covered walls, dust EVERYWHERE. The staff was nice enough but the food was atrocious. Not one member of our party could finish their first plate, let alone go back for something new or different. We were so disgusted. I tried to find management to get a refund, but suddenly, there was no one to help us.

It was my first visit, I liked the food, many varieties you get, not cheap $ 15.69 for dinner with drink. But overall I enjoyed my meal.
They have a serious issue with the cleanliness, they must take extra care with it, my silverware was not dried !!
The service was friendly and very helpful

Fried chicken is raw and undercooked.
Beef is overcooked
Plates and silver wears are dirty with dried food particles.
Food and health needs to take a look at this place or they need to let go whoever that does the washing and food preppers in the kitchen.

We used to come at least once a week or sometimes twice to this home town buffet because it had a lot of good choices of food to offer you, but in the last 5 – 6 months their food choices are really low, fried chicken, roasted chicken, chicken fingers, pizza, spaghetti and crunchy tacos bar and that’s all they offer you now.
Now we just come once a month or even longer hopping the options have change but everything still is the same.
We can even tell they are loosing costumers probably for the same reason because the place is now almost empty when we come.

I feel like this place is a hit or a miss. Sometimes its very good… other times their main meat is roast beef…
In the past couple of years, I can remember one times HTB being comparable to real buffets in Vegas… but the rest of the times it’s so so… sometimes its just so bad I feel like I am at a restaurant in Santa Ana or dare I say… Skid Roe.
The last time I was here I received a coupon which made it pretty good for the amount I paid. I’ll probably keep coming back… just keep those coupons coming!

We were lured twice to Hometown Buffet by their $ 4.99 breakfast and $ 17.99 dinner for two coupons in the mail… and also the fact that there are times when I get a wave of sheer laziness to cook for my family.
The first time in years since living with my parents, I came to Hometown buffet the first time for breakfast, and the food was somewhat decent. There were the usual continental breakfast items: waffles, pancakes, sausage, bacon, fruit, etc. There was also an omelette station. The food was still hot and fresh.
This was when they opened at 8:00 AM on a Sunday morning. As soon as we entered, it felt like we just walked into a senior citizen’s lounge. We were the youngest people there, besides my kids. I shouldn’t have been shocked, this is in Laguna Woods after all, where 75% of the population is over 80.
Since this was quite early, the food was fresh and hot. We piled up on pancakes and syrup, bacon, sausage and my husband had his omelette freshly made with the toppings he chose.
Now, dinner is a completely different story. The seats were sticky, the tables were dirty and the food is definitely gross. The steak was small, dry, and tendon-​y, and the rest of the food has been sitting out and just plain unappetizing.
Not coming back for dinner, but breakfast is a pretty good deal.

They used to have steak before. Not the case anymore. At the last two visits, steaks are out and there are not much selections. Please bring steaks back.
Also, the place is getting filthy. You can see dishes piling up and employees were eating along with the customers.
If they make the place more presentable, I think more customers would come back. It seems that they are slowly driving the customers away.

Possibly the worst place ever
I will never come here again and they close this place down
Gravy was horrible this potato thing was awful
Stay away and hope this place goes away