Ever eating at a buffet style chain restaurant? I did. I didn't know it

was buffet style. But I stayed anyway. It was terrible. The only decent thing about it was the salad bar. I can't believe how many people are being fooled into eating a crappy meal for $22.50. Of course I didn't complain because I am a creampuff. But for that much money you could get a good entree at most restaurants.

We have to take her to one every so often. I hate them.

The pizza is no worse than most of the mediocre pizza I've had grabbing a quick slice in Adams Morgan, DC(1) or Flatbush, NY(2) or national or regional chains(3).

But Cici's is usually cheaper, all you can eat with a wider selection and clean. For ~$6, it's a fair deal if you can deal with the omnipresent mob of children, the fact that the salads tend to wilt slightly from not being touched. For the specialty-buffet segment of the market, I'd give them *** for quality and **** for value.

Footnotes:

1-The neighborhood slogan should be: "Our pizza is terrible but there is so so much of it...and cheap." It's the home of the DC jumbo slice: average calories-count: ~1400/slice, about the size of a medium take-out-chain pie. Always $5, $6 with a can of soda. For years, I thought they were price-fixing and conspiring together. They're actually owned by the same family, most of them at-least.

2-With the exception of very few places that are the exemplar of NY-style pizza, a quick slice of pizza in NYC is overrated. Usually bland, cardboardy and either heat-lamped or reheated.

3-Pizza Hut, Domino's, Little Caesar's, Pizza Mart, Godfather's, etc.

(Scores curved to a median of ** for average for comparable market-segment. *** being above-average, **** being good, ***** being exceptional. I don't give out many *****.)

It is no better than the pizza you get out of the frozen section in the grocery store. They did something to make their stuff better (it used to taste like cardboard and almost-ketchup) but it is decent enough now.

Value, yes. But really, if that's above average quality to you, then you need to find some better pizza places. ;)

If you've never had some of the crap pizza that gets served on buffets, then you're unaware the the (average) is something akin to Elio's with the sauce replaced with tomato soup. No spices at all.

And no, Cici's is really no worse than most of the pizza-by-the-slice sold in Brooklyn and Adams Morgan. Sadly.

and the Pizza Huts here don't do the buffet anymore so Pizza Inn (there is one left, interestingly owned by a Chinese family) and Michelangelo's are the only 2 that even do it outside of Cici's.

I like my All Aboard Pizza :)

http://www.allaboardpizzanc.com/
edit: WARNING: site may have sound audible....

Back in college and when first married I ate there pretty regularly. As you said, the pizza is far from great, but it's decent, and the buffet used to be even cheaper. And they would always take special orders even on the buffet, so we could get whatever kind we wanted, and usually fresh out of the oven. They also had a huge TV, and for a time when we didn't have cable (and our reception of the NBC affiliate was really bad) we'd go there on Thursday nights to eat pizza and watch Seinfeld. :rofl:

Good times.

OK, I SHOULD be grateful. But I'm mostly sad.

All that fried food and desserts. Now they just scare me.

I've been to some that you couldn't pay me to go again. And I've been to some that I'll go back to.
There are two Chinese ones close to my house. One I haven't been to in 15 years because it sucked. The other I go to about once every two weeks-that one at any given time at least half the customers are Asian.

My rule has always been to never eat ethnic food in a place where you see no ethnics.

I once lived down the road from a Chinese-owned Chinese-buffet filled with Chinese people...named and I shit you not on this, Chin Kee Buffet. I have no idea what that was about but I was too afraid to ask; $8 all-you-can-eat lunch special Chinese buffets with good food don't come along frequently.

I'm forced to assume they mistakenly thought it a term of endearment? :shrug:

that we would go to several times a month for lunch because it was cheap and close to work. They were one of those mongolian bbq places that have the normal trays of chow mein and egg rolls and stuff but also had a live action grill where you go pick your meat and veggies out of a freezer and and dump whatever sauce you liked on it and hand it to the griddle master and he would stir fry it for you.

Well one day we got there and noticed the crowd was much thinner than usual and we started looking around and all the hot trays where they kept the chow mein and egg rolls and stuff were mostly empty and there was no griddle master manning the grill station and we asked the hostess lady what was up.

"Oh we no put food out righ now - health department making inspection - we put food out when they go..."


Ummm what? Are they telling us their food is good enough for us but not good enough for the health inspector? We promptly set our plates down and got refunds and left.

Went by a few weeks later and noticed they were closed by order of the health department.

... that the food is not turning over as fast as it used to. Which translates into a lot of food not being fresh as it should be.

If the business is brisk and the food is moving fast and fresh stuff is coming out constantly generally buffets are pretty good around here.

But since the recession hit they are not worth eating at any more.

Don

Twenty years ago, when I was in Connecticut on vacation, I went here with friends: http://www.custys.com/OurMenu.aspx Unbelievable, unlimited buffet of lobster, prepared all sorts of ways, wonderful steaks, chops, jumbo shrimp, scallops, crab, and on and on. It was $50 per person which was expensive for me at the time, but considering that a one-lobster meal would cost about $25 at another restaurant, it was worth a shot. Oh. My. God. I ate more at one sitting than I had eaten before or since, each bite delicious. They're still in business and charge $80 now. But, I'll tell you, if I'm ever in their neighborhood again, I'll budget for a meal there.
So, call me a glutton, but unlimited lobster? For this transplanted Bostonian, that's my idea of heaven.

70s it was $9.99 I think. The best thing was the unlimited shrimp!

Honestly, I don't think that it's the restaurant's fault but some of the people that go to these things are just gross around the food.

to kill just about anything this side of Bubonic Plague.

I know I'm risking all sorts of parasites, but all that sushi and sashimi almost makes me want to weep with happiness.

so - aside from the gross out factor, and the fact that much of the food is not very good at all - it is really not cost-effective for me. I probably eat $2 worth for a charge of $10 or more.

A lot of people like to pack it in; it's usually bad for you and really high-fat, high-calorie food, unless you stay with the salad bar and avoid the pasta salads, etc.

Like if it were a pizza place, all I could eat would be 1 piece, maybe 1 1/2 if I pushed it.

It is a waste of money for me, so I just get an entree with a doggie bag.

OMG, I went there once and there was nothing to eat beyond the salad bar...

Kids love this stuff, they run around piling the shit on their plates, it's kind of a rite of passage for the little capitalists...

and that's two times too many. Decided on the second try that copious choices were not a draw when everything was inedible.

It was that bad.

:scared:

a quality all of its own.

....to the nearest Golden Corral for a good buffet. Oh, and by the way, Cici's is some of the worst pizza in the country, and I've given it a chance in at least three different states. Thanks.
quickesst

.....the best description I've heard. We used to go to Pizza Inn for their buffet which was fabulous. Of course I had to leave plenty of room for dessert. The Stromboli was to die for. mmmmmmmmm! Thanks.
quickesst

I have relatives who, when I visit, always want to go to the Western Sizzlin to "show me a good time".

I bite my tongue and load up on salad.

The single worst buffet place I've ever experienced was as a child. Dad thought it would be a change of pace to go to a Pancho's Mexican Buffet after church one Sunday.

As a hungry and indiscriminate kid, even I knew the food there was only marginally better than dog food.

at the Argosy Casino in Kansas City. It is a treat if you like crab legs.

Except you have more choices and it cost 21 dollars more