Buck's Saloon & Steakhouse — Local services in Melba

Buck's Saloon & Steakhouse Service: 4/5 Food: 3/5 Price for value: 4/5 (tax is included) Bariatrics/Healthy Options: 2/5

Overall stars for this establishment, for me, is 3 and here's why:

We wanted to get a little bit out of town and ended up in Melba. Melba is a small farming community about 20 minutes from Nampa, Idaho and has an approximate population of 527. It's known for being the hometown of Playboy Playmate of the year 1990, Renee Tenison (what a scandal that must have been) and Atwell Parry, Idaho State Senator and being a great place to call home. It had been years since I have visited the town. They have the best fireworks production that I've ever seen! Anyway--I looked on Yelp and chose this place because of the advertisements when you come into town and the overall warmth and inviting exterior of the establishment had when we drove by.

Now onto the actual business--

We walked into this clean and spacious bar. It wasn't until I was exploring to take pics for you Yelpers that I noticed the restaurant side, which you can see in Lino's photos, and it BSU themed and spacious and clean as well. Its city history shines throughout--there are newspaper articles on the wall, photos, and old décor with a modern twist. Bravo to the look inside!

The staff was super nice--not overly friendly, not under friendly. The food came quickly and was well presented with good portions. I have to say that the ranch was AMAZING! I really liked it.

I noticed a board with specials and I decided on the ham and cheese sandwich with no bread and loaded potato soup. They put two pieces of lunch meat ham with melted cheese in the middle--nothing special there. The potato soup, however, was super good. It had the right amount of everything including bacon that was quite tasty and chewy. I liked the soup a lot!

My dining companion, Yesi, ordered the Nachos (1/2 order) add chicken. The chips were like a fried taco salad shell broken into pieces, which was interesting--I don't know if it did the "Nacho" justice though. The chicken was super dry and hard to eat as if it were microwaved. She didn't eat much and didn't take leftovers with her.

Another dining companion, Jon, ordered finger steaks and fries, which he orders at a lot of places. He rated it a 2.5. Again, nothing special.

My last dining companion ordered the Patty melt which is served on rye bread and he chose tots. He didn't like it much although he did eat it all and wasn't complexly disappointed. I always ask what he would rate it and he said a two.

So, all-in-all, the food wasn't amazing; however, the place is clean, the portions are good, the food is decent, the staff is very nice, and the ambiance is pretty cool- I'd have some drinks and dinner here often if I lived in this tiny town!

Well, thanks for reading! I hope you're having a good day whenever you read this!!! Leave a comment and say HI! Would love to know your thoughts on Buck's Saloon...

Service is a little slow, but the side salad was all fresh, good quality veggies with REAL bacon bits. It had everything but the kitchen sink. The burger was high quality meat, cooked perfectly on a great bun. To top it off the onion rings were battered, not straight from the freezer to the fryer. The iced tea was so so and I would think with the beautiful blue skies in the Melba area, they would be better served doing sun tea. I was driving so could not have a beer which would have been perfect with the burger. Make no mistake, this is no Michelin rated bistro or hidden gem of a gastropub, this is a backbone of America, feeding hard working people, local restaurant. If you want fancy, go to Boise. If you want what keeps America running, go to Buck's in Melba. By the way, if it takes them a little longer to serve good food, I will always wait the extra time! If I want fast, I can always find a McDonald's. All in all I would...

Waited 1 hour for our food ordered 3 meals. 1 hour later my food showed up cold after waiting a hour , asked for it to be microwaved and waited 10 more minutes finally got up and asked were my food was mind you ther we're only 8 people in the whole joint, that should have told me and my 4 other friends that this place wasn't the place to enjoy a 4 o clock meal, I am reluctant to ever come back seeing that there are a lot of food options with better prices and drinks. It is a hard sale to sell your food, service, attitude, and order to drink and eat time was so very long, when there was only a very few patrons and I believe the manager or owner was one of the few others. Maybe they all were drunk that would make sense. Sorry I just had to share a very bad experience... I may go back only to see who the manager is and see if they are just short handed and can't prepare for clients on a...