Kettle Restaurant

This is my 1^st experience here at Kettle. The staff was friendly. The most enjoyable part of our dining experience was Johnny, a prep cook. While looking over the breakfast buffet he appeared & offered to serve eggs the special way my husband likes. Needless to say, he had seconds. Lots of food choices at times it was hard picking. Very satisfied with the food (buffets can be hit or miss) & the prices. Will definitely come back.

Let me start by saying the service is AWESOME! The breakfast buffet not so much. The eggs were rubbery and dry, the potatoes, hash browns and biscuits and gravy were all void of any real flavor except for grease. Maybe the off the menu items are good? Skip the buffet. The place is clean but the tables and booths are Tiny. Uncomfortable for a 4 person party. A Tucson landmark that needs a major re-​work or will probably die.

Located on the west side of Starr Pass Blvd, Kettle Restaurant has managed to stay open for many years. Their welcoming atmosphere features dozens of clocks with times from various cities all over the world.
I would like to commend the exceptional service here. A lady server who has worked there for years was nice and attentive. The owner was extremely friendly and welcoming. He came by the table to have a conversation; a sign that he cares about his customers. He brought out extra food not even on the food from his native country of Jordan. If he converted his restaurant to Jordanian food, it could easily be one of the best in town.
Going off the last sentence above, I will say avoid the buffet. The soups and the hot food were cold, while the cold food wasn’t cold enough. The Middle Eastern food he brought out saved the meal. They do have a regular American food menu so you are better off ordering from that.
Here’s to hoping that this restaurant soon becomes a restaurant specializing in Jordanian food. That would easily get this place more stars!

nice place friendly buffet ok .not sure about there ribs but chicken and shrimp good.Friendly. ladies wait on you good service

This is your basic breakfast, lunch and dinner senior style resturant with a buffet. Not impressive but quick service and friendly atmosphere and you can order off the regular menu if you don’t want the buffet.

I think everyone’s rating is close to the money. We came lured by the 7.99 breakfast buffet and they had a good variety, but we were super disappointed. Everything was cold, some things were very hard and the waffles had a weird after taste. The hash browns had hard instances and my cup was dirty with some goo. I would not recommend this place. Avoid it and go somewhere with quality food.

This place is absolutely gross. They have to serve yesterdays (or last weeks) food reheated in the buffet. How else could you get that texture from food. We went out of convenience because we were in the hotel behind it. Chicken looked like it had been baked chicken warmed up in water. All the other food was overcooked to mush. All that looked safe was the salad, kind of. This place needs to be checked out and managed better. No wonder they had coupons. I made a mistake to stay and overpaid for disgusting food I couldn’t even eat. Vegas buffets can charge you $ 5.99 and your drinks included and they for sure passed the health grade. Don’t Go To The Kettle!!!

Family diner. Had the buffet. Eclectic assortment: a large chicken leg, fried jalapeño, tamale, two rolled grape leaves, fresh melon. All good. Lots of Mexican choices there. Also has a menu with breakfast served all day long. Friendly, attentive staff. Good place for a casual relaxed meal with no expectations. Next to the Clarion Hotel.

Great Buffet for only $ 8.99! Better yet, the owner and staff. Personable, helpful, happy. Some of the best service we have had in years! Like a visit to grandma’s Will be back!!!

We’ve gone there once a couple years ago during the Tucson Gem and Mineral show. The food was good, service was decent.
We will try to go back if we are in the area again.

the breakfast buffet rocks. the service is pretty good. skip the dinner buffet. really, skip tucson.

We have been visiting this restaurant off and on for years. Sam, the owner, is extremely accommodating. He goes out of his way to visit with all patrons and is extremely sensitive to requests. He is in the process of getting bids for upgrades to this «well used» location. We have not had a bad meal at this Kettle and really appreciate the extra attention from Khadija and others. This is an old time family restaurant which has tons of local regulars (just check it on Sunday mornings after church!). In spite of the negative reviews, go in with a positive, upbeat attitude. Ask for Sam, the owner. He’ll make it right for you.

Don’t expect much. Saw an ad for $ 7.99 dinner buffet at the hotel next door, and went here for dinner with my family because it was the closest dining option. The Kettle chain was founded in 1968, and this location looked like it hadn’t been renovated since it opened. If I could describe it in one sentence, it would probably be: «Luby’s after it’s been on meth for a year.» It’s pretty sad looking. As for the dinner buffet, you are better off going to Wack Arnold’s.
For starters, there was a very meager selection of food. Mystery meatloaf, baked chicken, sausage and bell peppers, or spaghetti casserole. There was a very sad looking «salad bar,» which is basically a giant bowl of iceberg lettuce, with old looking cherry tomatoes and dressings which look like they had been sitting there for a week. There were two employees working, and both of them had brought their children to work. As a result, no one came by to ask us if our drinks needed to be refilled or if we wanted our check.
When we were ready to leave, we stood around waiting to pay for about 5 minutes. Also the advertised buffet price on the flyer is out of date; it is now $ 8.49 a person. The waitress started berating the manager when we pointed that out to her. Seems like a change in management is sorely needed.
Bottom line: Unless your only other dining option is eating a body part, I would stay far away.

Say you want to get a bowl of ice cream and a drink to go while you are at the gem show… I mean, it’s pretty hard work finding a parking space and navigating booths after booths of gems that smell like a foreign country… literally.
Kettle is a little diner that has clocks from food places across the states — for example, it has a clock that tells the time in Strawberry, AZ — cute things like that.
A bowl of ice cream (chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla) is two scoops and $ 1.79. Even a Pepsi is more than that at $ 1.99. Overall, decent respite from the I-​10/​22^nd/​Congress gem/​mineral/​fossil/​jewelry.

A surprisingly good breakfast with great service.
I was hesitant even to sit down in this highway exit greasy spoon, but with Waffle House and Dennys the only other options, I gave it a shot.
The building itself is in very rough shape. The carpet is permanently dirty, and the booths and tables have seen better days. They could improve the place just by cleaning the windows. As for the bathrooms — just hold it.
There weren’t any healthy options on the breakfast menu, just variants of eggs, meat and pancakes. No oatmeal, no yogurt. The omnipresent buffet almost tempted me because I could see fresh cantaloupe, watermelon, grapes and apples in it, but it turns out that the fruit was the only thing fresh on it. So I made a couple of substitutions and created an egg and fruit combo. The waitress was very accommodating, and the food was surprisingly good.

On our cross country trip from FL to CA, we stopped in Tucson and were starving for some food. Apparently every single restaurant in the town closes on Monday. Seriously. We drove up and down «downtown» and it was a ghost town.
Kettle was open! So we decide to get the safest and easiest things to make: sandwiches. I order a club and he gets a grilled cheese. How hard can that be? Great service with really nice people, that I felt bad when I’m handed a sandwich with PINK TURKEY. The cheese, lettuce, meat, and tomatoes were so cold. The toast was toasted though. I literally took apart the sandwich to find someway to eat just the bread or bits and pieces before realizing it was a lost cause. I had this mess on my plate that I felt really bad leaving behind. This was just the beginning of our two days of HORRIBLE food in Tucson.