HomeTown Buffet

This place was a very important bonding place for my bro and son. Very sad they closed without notice. I, myself did not care for the cafeteria style food in general. However, the last visit I really enjoyed the omelet bar. I was surprised they closed.

Horrible place… I’m surprised the food inspectors didn’t shut it down before the parent company itself was forced financially to do so. Remember the commercials where the CEO assured us that they would «make it right» if we weren’t satisfied? False advertising! (I complained and they just blew me off)

Came here for Thanksgiving, no one wanted to do any cooking. They had a full Thanksgiving spread, and most of it was pretty good! The layout was odd, the meat carving station had the turkey, roast beef, and ham, but only half of the sides were to the right of it. The other sides were at an island in the middle, and some of it was the same, but that helps to keep the people moving with more places to get food from. The only thing I thought could have used some work was the candied yams. It didn’t have the marshmallow topping and needed a bit more sugar and butter in it.
I only tried a few of the other things like the barbecued sausage and chicken and dumplings, both were pretty good though the chicken/​dumplings needed a touch of salt. Other things they had available were a pasta station, a salad bar, taco bar, and a few other random things. The dessert area had plenty to choose from, but I couldn’t eat more than a piece of pie after the stuffing myself.
The customer service was pretty good, they kept the food filled and didn’t take long to clear off the dirty dishes. I wouldn’t mind going back sometime to see what else they have to offer.

Just had my free Veteran’s Lunch Buffet and am quite pleased and very much satisfied with every aspect of my visit today.
I got here a bit before noon and the line was out the door and not quite I to the parking lot. Lines like that I consider to be a good omen.
The interior was clean, pleasant, well staffed, and genuinely relatively quiet for a buffet restaurant. The background music was that perfect volume where you can hear it in the background but it’s not intrusive.
The food was plentiful, fresh and hot, and there was a respectable variety of available items. People who complain about it being bland and/​or boring forget that Hometown Buffet strives to make itself available and attractive to as wide an audience of customers as it can, and than means making quality food that is not spiced beyond its widest customer base. When I come here it’s for the comfort aspect, it’s a known quantity and I appreciate it as such. As Hometown Buffets go, I would rank this as one of the better ones.
This particular restaurant appears, in my humble opinion, to be a victim of old bad reviews and genuinely deserves to have a higher rating than it currents has… I saw nothing of what the bad reviews claimed to be the case.

Don’t even waste your money !
Tasteless, expensive food !!!
Really folks don’t waste your money !

Save ur money and dont come here. Go somewhere else! So we got there at 8 pm last night (friday) and they close at 9:30 pm
anyways there wasnt much to choose from… Seriously its called a buffet people there was a few things to choose from and if u eat fried chicked the chicken is not cook right. i grabbed chicken twice and both pieces were uncooked! Very dissapointed!!!

Where do i even start. Do yourself, your wallet, and your stomach a favor… DO NOT EVER UNDER AAAANY CIRCUMSTANCE COME TO EAT THIS DOGSHIT. If i had been able to eat this prior to paying 24 dollers i wouldnt even eat this obvioulsy frozen/​processed dog food for free. My wife can cook better food that this… And let me tell you people… Thats saying something. The only reason i came here was because my low standar wife forced me to and this is a ³⁄₃ for a place that says «buffet» but actually means «a hive of fat tattooed people eating fecal matter polished to look like pizza» if i wasnt extensive enough… Let me reiterate… Id rather eat M R freakin E’s people. Yea. Let that sink in

Haven’t been here in sometime because of bland food, mystery items (food not labeled or unrecognizable) and seems everyone is on break as food out.
Seems. Not much has changed

I remember when the food here was good, now its downright embarrassing to bring someone here for dinner. The food is either dry or gloppy with a bland taste. The food is being pushed out so quickly that the factor of good tasting food is being forgotten. Even the ice cream tastes bland. I don’t known what it is that changed in the kitchen, maybe it was a budget cut resulting in lower quality ingredients. I’ll come back in a few years to give this place another try, but for now, I’m eating else where. Customer service was good though.

AWFUL food! Dry overcooked meats, water logged vegetables, greasy fried foods. They charged extra for special items on Father’s Day that they knew they were already OUT OF!!! They did have the roast beef but it was WAY overcooked. Any entrees that are good — they run out of and there’s a LONG wait for replacements. This was just an all around, unpleasant and FRUSTRATING dining experience.

All I can say now since they changed the menu is… THIS PLACE SUCKS! I thought I’d try this a second time. Don’t waist your money.
Positive note… Staff was kind and courteous.

The ONLY good thing here are the BBQ baked beans. sloppy. Unkempt. Kids running around with no shoes on. Unsanitary. Ice cream bar was a disaster. Never coming back here. Don’t waste your time or money.

I seriously don’t even think this place deserves one star but I’ll give it one just because they honor active duty on Mondays. We went for our first time last night thinking we’d get some awesome choices since we couldn’t decide on what we wanted and we left within 15 mins if that.
The food was disgusting, tasteless and cold.
The chicken still had pink in it.
The mashed potatoes are instant potatoes.
The baked potatoes were burnt.
The bread was stale.
The guy restocking the silver ware dropped a handle and picked them all back up and still put them out.
The workers kids were running around making all types of noise playing with the ice cream dispenser.
I don’t even know why this place is still open or why people still even go here.
The only thing I liked was the popcorn shrimp, okra and pork chops. Good luck to the families who waste their money here.

My friend and I came in this past Sunday evening for dinner before I went back home to Los Angeles. She mentioned she was going to dinner by herself after I left and when she said «Hometown Buffet» I smile spread across my face. I LOVE HOMETOWN BUFFET! & being that I’ve noticed everything in Oceanside is better than L. A’s version, I thought this would be no different.
The girl that rung us up was very nice but a wee bit too talkative especially since she had a long line behind us. We paid and ventured into the dinning area. Booth after booth after booth was filthy. I didn’t see ONE bus person come out and clean a table while we were there. But they were seen mopping the floors and cleaning the outside windows. Bizarre.
I always get the same thing when I go to Hometown, and thankfully everything that I wanted was plentiful but my friend didn’t have the same luck. She said that several things she wanted were out and she (being the resident) was very disappointed.
The bathroom? I shouldn’t have expected it to be clean it there. If they don’t care about their main source of business, food at a restaurant, why would they think to clean the bathrooms? Each of the 3 stalls were out of toilet paper. & they have those disgusting air dryers in there «to help the environment» so I had to use toilet liners and use my shirt to open their disgusting door.
This place needs a lot of work and thankfully, I’m only in OC 2 times a year.

To begin with the front cashier lady was inviting. Some of the silverware and dishes still had food on them went through 5 forks 3 plates. Our lady attending to our table was very helpful and cleared our plates in a quick manner where we could begin our next round of meals. There was several entrées missing from each of the categories and other than that the food tasted good. The restroom needed some work it had paper towels overflowing and same with the women’s bathroom seems like it had not been touched up in a while. Overall my families experience was good we go eat there in a few weeks and see if it is any different.

Hometown Buffet breakfast is our families favorite! We use the $ 5.49 breakfast coupon every time it comes in the mail. I always get an Omelette, bacon, waffles, and a variety of other fun stuff. I like some items more than others. But it’s all you can eat so I always experiment with something different every time. Always resist being a glutton and watch my portions.
Things they could improve on is: every once in awhile I grab a mug that’s dirty, such as coffee ring around the inside of the cup that’s not been scrubbed off thoroughly. Clean cups and dishes I think is essential and this should be on a top priority list.
It would also be nice if they had flavor coffee creamer like most restaurants offer instead of just the half and half.
They may run out of something occasionally and take time to replenish it, but personally I think that’s expected with buffets.
And once in awhile (very rarely) they have someone in the omelette station who can’t make omelets very well and they end up more like scrambles. Haha but doesn’t bother me much. :) I love hometown! Can’t wait to go again!

Changing my rating from 1 star to 4 stars. Employees seem to be working hard to build it back up. My son asked a lady named Chloe if they had chicken strips… she said «no, it’s a lunch item, but I’ll make it for you.». What? Seriously? Yea, and she delivered it to the table. Very nice lady. They seem to be improving. Once they are top of cleanliness, maybe 5 stars in the buffet category.

2stars cause it is a hometown buffet not a regular restaurant. Would’ve been 3 star but you can’t expect top notch at these places. This Location was below the normal low quality chain. Over or undercooked food, dessert bar was deserted bar. No sprinkles, no cookies… With more than an hour till close it seems like they’re just gonna let everything run dry. Too bad cause my kiddos love hometown. We just won’t be eating here again
anytime soon.

We came on a thursday night as a family expecting Sunday type service. Boy were we disappointed! First no cups for drinks. Then no chicken. No mac and cheese! To top it off no cones for ice cream, that wasn’t refilled yet, nor cookies for my son.
I thought you went to hometown to eat anything fresh. There was just no food out at all. Seemed as if the cooks were mad at the head chef because it took longer after she told them. Sorry but i will never do hometown on college ever again. They have killed the urge of hometown forever for me. Where’s a Golden Corral when you need one.

I don’t know why there are such bad reviews this place is fantastic. The food is fools old american comfort food.
To the girl who commented everyone was «poor» here that’s ridiculous! This place has all kinds of people!
Will defiantly come back. My husband and I love it.