Curry Village Pavillion Dining Hall

Unfortunately, dinner here was no better than we’d experienced at Yellowstone and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. This place is a rustic equivalent of your old college dining hall, with cafeteria style service. The menu offers a modest variety of choices, all pre-​cooked and at the ready on a steam table. Food pick-​up and payment is quick. Lots of tables can be arranged for small or large parties. Since one is generally tired from a day’s hiking about the park, consuming calories in bulk, in short order will do. That’s what Curry Village Pavilion delivers.

Overpriced, prepacked and defrosted food. Super lame and boring. No creativity whatsoever.
This places needs to get replaced with a restaurant more like Plant.

Not impressed. We came for breakfast and payed about 26 for two people with no drinks. The portions are large enough to split between two people! The food as very bland, where salt pepper and ketchup didn’t help improve the taste much. I’d look elsewhere for breakfast, take the bus to Yosemite village and get a breakfast sandwich from deegan’s deli!
The coffee shop tucked to the right hand side when you walk in is good! Which is why this place is getting two stars… I ordered a hot chocolate and wow it was amazing!!!

Let’s see. This is the so called food court. The food is overpriced and not good.
Breakfast is overpriced, got the child plate it came with either 1 french toast that they cut into half or 4 mini pancakes. With 3 bacons or 2 sausages or 2 half slices of ham, scrambled egg and a little cup of juice or milk. Taste wise… Below average. But I guess you are forced to buy breakfast here if you don’t pack your own.
They don’t open for lunch. Dinner, got the single plate of beef and broccoli, $ 7 it doesn’t even cover half a plate. So not worth it.
I suggest, pack your own food or get the frozen stuff from the gift shop across, they have microwave. Though the gift shop isn’t cheap either but better than this place.

Well, I was wrong about Curry Village Pavillon Dining Hall. :(
The food used to be good here (very short-​lived). At one time, they were serving some organic and local foods. But, it seems that in order to keep costs down, food here is pretty much Sysco quality. Mass production to feed the masses. Definitely cafeteria food-​fare.
Expect lots of carbs (pastas and bread), a salad bar consisting of flavorless veggies such as tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and the like. The meats here are salty and greasy. They serve the same types of desserts each day: chocolate cake and some kind of jello cake concoction. Oh, sometimes they serve up chocolate «mousse», which is made from some type of «cool whip» and chocolate mix (chocolate granules in the texture).
You want fruit? Don’t expect it to be fresh. Fruit here is from a can: syrupy and has a strange metallic taste. VERY processed foods.
WHY!!!
Well, we can blame DNC (Delaware North Company). They hold the monopoly on concessionaires in national parks (think Yellowstone and the like). They are the company running Curry Village, the Ahwahnee Hotel, the souvenir shops, and so on. People, it’s the privitization of our public lands. So much for «America’s Best Idea»!
Sure, if I don’t like this place, why not eat elsewhere or make my own meals? Well, my students were part of an outdoor educational program for a week, and this was the food provided to us. Some of my students eating here wouldn’t stop complaining about the poor quality of the food. Some even felt sick.
Perhaps the only positives to this spot is the open space of this dining hall and the fact that they serve Peets Coffee.
And what’s even scarier (as DNC’s contract is about to expire), there is discussion about Disney buying Yosemite’s operations. Can you imagine Disney running Yosemite?! EEK!!! I don’t want to!
Even more sad, our public lands were just voted to be sold off to the highest bidders.
I can imagine that John Muir is probably turning over in his grave!

Wow I wish there was a zero score. Where do I start? Half the cafeteria is closed down for dinner… there is only ever pizza and one special entrée which both are terrible. Not to mention the staff doesn’t care at least not at dinner time… breakfast they are very nice and the food is actually half way decent but the dinner is inexcusable given the price.

The food here feels like a camp mess hall. It’s really nothing spectacular. It’s also pricey because… hell. why not? There aren’t a whole lot of dining options for guests so they know they can get away with it!
At least the eating area is nice with some great atmosphere… even if it can be ruined by loud patrons/​families.
Hoenstly, I’d just go for the pizza place outside. Better food & much more reasonably priced.

I go hiking and camping a lot with family. I’ve been to my fair share of national parks. I avoid buying food of any kind when I’m in a national park if at all possible. However, this time I was here with family friends who were visiting from outside the country, and they wanted to try this.
Never again.
The only thing going for this place is that there’s a decent amount of food. But quality? Way too salty, oily, greasy. And WAY overpriced. A dinner plate of 1 entrée (basically one piece of meat or vegetarian entrée) and 2 sides was already $ 15.50! Then salads are priced at $ 0.47 per oz., and a bowl of soup is $ 4.25. The pork and rice soup was tasteless and pork way overcooked. I should’ve just gotten a salad and soup.
And the pizza place? $ 9 for a personal pizza of 4 slices; the pizza was probably about 6″ in diameter? Tinnnyyy. $ 9!!! $ 1 for additional toppings! Ridiculous.
If you don’t have the patience or foresight to prepare enough food beforehand, you’ll just have to buy food here. Otherwise, save some money and bring food YOU like.

The dining hall has several options for dining. You can buy a full meal or a la carte. My group ordered the chicken and fish meals for dinner and were very disappointed in the taste and quality. But they really liked the quinoa!
There is also a salad bar — the charge is by the ounce. In my opinion, the best item and the best deal was the chili for $ 4.25 — it’s a huge bowl and is pretty tasty.
There is abundant seating for dining here, and you can bring your food from the grill or pizza place into this area and eat as well.

Breakfast was expensive for the food and service and I suspect me and my buddies got their stomach upset after eating their food.

It’s gone way downhill. The buffet is gone, and for the same price you now get only 1 entrée and 2 sides. There are only 4 entrees to choose from and on the night we were there, 2 of them were pastas (hardly a good value for $ 15.50, considering pasta is practically free). The food was pretty mediocre. A lot of the buffet food was mediocre too, but it had some decent items and with a buffet, everybody is bound to find something they like ok. Not so anymore. The dining hall was dirtier than I remembered too.

This is a review for my visit sometime in August 2013. My family and I visit Yosemite every year. On our annual trip, we usually stop by Curry Village buffet. When we entered for dinner, we were shocked that the BUFFET WAS GONE! It was replaced with a cafeteria like atmosphere similar to the Yosemite Lodge cafeteria. I don’t remember exactly what we ate, but similar to what a reviewer stated, one of the food dishes was very salty. I want to say it was a fish dish. This is the only thing that stood out that I remember. This seemed to have ruined it for our future trips. We always eat at the Yosemite Lodge cafeteria for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I believe that is now the best spot for dinner in terms of price and quality.
When the buffet was here, I would have given it 4 – 5 stars because of the price (~$ 25 for adults I believe) and the amount and variety of food. But of course, this would have wasted a lot of water with regards to washing utensils and possibly led to the wasting of food. So I understand the conversion from a buffet to not-​a-​buffet. But I really miss the buffet.
Now, I’ve given it 2 stars because of the saltiness of the food. I would increase it if it wasn’t as salty. I’m comparing the food (only for dinner) here to the food at Yosemite Lodge cafeteria.
A suggestion maybe is for someone to taste test the food to check for saltiness.