Seafood Palace Buffet — Restaurant in Annapolis

Who doesn’t love buffet? The Seafood Palace Buffet in Annapolis, Maryland replaced two prior buffet joints. One of them being Old Country Buffet which I used to eat at often. It was mostly comfort food. The set up was quite different compared to now. We LOVE a good “all you can eat” buffet because well, it’s all you can eat for just one price. In an economy where restaurants are almost charging double and grocery stores are raising prices. It’s hard to find a place to feel like you get what you pay for. And an all you can eat buffet makes you feel like you’re getting what you’re paying for. Each buffet is themed, like the Golden Corral and other buffet places, the Seafood Palace Buffet is well, seafood and some comparable foods that you might find in your local Chinese Restaurant. But they do have many other choices and style of foods. There are different stations of food to choose from. One has an Asian style of food/seafood, another your regular seafood like crabs, shrimp, steamed poached or fried fish. On some days, you will see king crab legs, maybe lobster. There’s an American section with pizza, ham, roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, fried chicken wings, meatloaf, string beans etc. A soup station with different types of soup like crab, chowders to hot and sour. There are also salad and fruit stations for eating on the lighter side. They even have a Teppanyaki style of grill where you can get a bit of seafood, chicken, eggs, and veggie stirfried just like a hibachi. They also have sushi! As you’ll notice in the photos I took, each section has its own style of food. And, let’s not forget the desserts of most buffet joints. A lot of the desserts are similar. Soft serve ice cream, sometimes a chocolate fountain to dip strawberries and fruit in. And a selection of cut cakes, pies, and other sweets. Of course our favorite is the carrot cake … And trust me I’ve eaten a lot of carrot cake over the years. I know it’s not made in house, but it’s one of the best carrot cakes we’ve eaten. My wife and her sister are addicted to it. Now, depending on the time or day you go, the price may change from lunch to dinner and they may have different foods than what they have during the week on the weekends. Holidays and other events they may throw in different things for that holiday. My wife her sister and I have been there often. With mixed experiences each time but mostly positive. And everyone has different tastes, some people like their food cooked well, some people like it cooked just right. I’ll leave that up to you! At a time when their business was a little slower and they were trying to it pick up. I spoke to the owners and they were doing all they can to keep up with things. Covid Almost destroyed them, but they kept pushing through. Now,with Restaurant prices almost doubled, and the Seafood Palace buffet may have raised their price a little, but still an “all you can eat” joint compared to other places you pay for the same price for one meal? Definitely getting more than you paid for here. We’ve eaten most everything they serve. They definitely need to find someone who can cook hibachi better, not overcook the food and know exactly what they’re doing. Some of the bigger meats may need to be cooked longer and slower to be more tender. And if they made a few small changes it will help, because the goal is always to bring in customers. That’s just my opinion. As for what YOU will like? Well, I’ll leave that up to you. Next time you’re in #Annapolis, Maryland near the mall area or just in the mood for some seafood and comfort food, stop by and check them out! Tell ‘em Jack Julius sent you, from Google Reviews! Food? I would’ve given them 5 stars ⭐️ but there were a few things that made it worth it! Service? Better than most places! 👍 Atmosphere? There really is any. It’s like a large cafeteria with buffet style food. And I don’t think most people care about the atmosphere. They just want a decent meal at a decent price! #comfortfood #SeafoodBuffet...

2 Hour Minimum Stay is how long you're given to eat per either the Manager and or Owner. Ana the waitress would be better off working behind the scenes and not dealing with customers. She's very rude, not friendly and we had to literally keep asking her every time for more refills. The strange thing she would fill up my Dad & Sisters cup all the way up & only fill mine 1/4 of the way. Very odd behavior? Well, the place does have very good food (some can be salty) & a nice selection including deserts. The Asian music they play while you eat is very nice along with plenty of open space. When I get together with my Dad & Sister we can spend hours talking and really having a great time in which we did up until we noticed our waitress Ana and others including the Mgr kept staring at us. Well, not keeping track of time of course because we were catching up and telling family stories ect 4hrs had passed and the Manager came over to advise there was a 2hr minimum stay. He also advised if we want to continue sitting there he'll have to recharge each of us again as though we just newly arrived. While he's doing this our Waitresses including other Waitresses are all watching. It was on a Tuesday and the restaurant hardly had anyone in there the whole time we were there. So it wasn't like we were taking up tables or preventing any new customers from sitting. There were open tables around us the entire time so I'm not sure what the issue was. Plus my Dad is older & does not eat much and my sister always watches her diet so it's not like we're eating all the food. Me, I'm another story but okay lol. I also want to mention on a prior visit, I saw them throwing food away in trash cans at closing as we were leaving. Take away, I guess anyone looking to spend quality time with family you better make sure you're keeping track of your time and eating fast because waitresses like Ana will look at your receipt they tell you to leave on the table to see what time you've arrived. Also, nowhere did we see any postings of this 2-hour minimum visit including prior visits so that wasn't very nice of the manager to do this especially since he even mentioned that we've always left large tips in the past for the waitresses. And you're welcome for your generous tip Ana even though I was having a hard time laying it down on the table. Plus the next day, I really regretted leaving it! With this said, the mgr had recognized us from prior visits and still pulled this on us? No loyalty at all to the customers who patronized his business. Only wrote this review because it rubbed me the wrong way. Especially when I know you're throwing the food out anyway and very light customer traffic that day in your restaurant while we were there. Mgr suggestion. Get rid of the lunch/dinner hours. Nobody's trying to get over on your business. Just make it one price & combine lunch/dinner all day long. It's not that much of a noticeable difference between the food layouts. For dinner you're only adding a few extra items to the already lunch items. This will solve all this goofiness of watching receipts and trying to re-charge people for sitting past the lunchtime hours of 3 pm. Also, on the front door, you need to post 2-hour minimum stay so people can clearly see and understand & aren't ambushed by the mgr to either pay again or get out. Otherwise, you're going to lose good loyal...

I haven't been to this place since 2017 and it hasn't changed much... I have always enjoyed this place, but my most recent visit was kind of a letdown. Don't get me wrong... the food was absolutely amazing! They have so many options for sushi, which was my main reason for going... not only that, but they have a great selection of other food from Asain Cuisine, actual seafood (real whole shrimps with the head still on), and desserts (the ice cream is my favorite... the banana pudding, though tastes like play-doh, wouldn't recommend the banana pudding.)

Now let me get to the staff... They seemed like they were trying to be friendly, but I got a sense of passive-aggressive from them. So we (my brother and I) walk in right when lunch starts at 11 ... around $35 for two people.... checking in and paying was alright. We sat right under the TV, though, so it felt like everyone was staring at us eating (I'd ask for a different seat next time). We got our drinks... and so far, it seemed okay. Next, we got our first plates (mine was a plate full of sushi), and we took our time eating. Now, while we were eating, the waitress came back every 5 minutes to check on us, which I believe is too frequently and started to make me uncomfortable. After finishing my first plate, I decided to sit there for 3 minutes, sipping the water and trying to decide what I would like to try next. Now I just got a combination of different foods on my 2nd plate... but at the same time, it wasn't a big plate since I still wanted to try more stuff. And I also decided to eat that slowly and enjoy it too... Before I could finish my 2nd plate of food, the waitress brought us a tray with mints and said, "Thank you, and have a nice day." WE WEREN'T EVEN DONE YET! (Nor were we even there for 30 minutes yet) I felt pressured to leave and uncomfortable, but I still hadn't tried everything I wanted and got dessert. So I just got one more plate and put a combination of those two things on there.. when I went to hand the waitress a tip, she pulled it out of my hand really fast and said thank you, but her thank you didn't feel genuine.

I'm hoping the next time I go there the service is better. I don't know what it is, but they seemed a bit overworked, and they acted as if they were under a close watch and had to check every table constantly... and I guess their boss also wanted them to act like they want guests to leave before they even finish eating.

Anyways, to conclude this review... I would definitely go if you're super hungry so you can get the most out of your money... don't take too many people because it starts getting ready, expensive fast.. and if you take another person, make sure it's someone with a large appetite as well. I would eat mostly the sea food there and not the common stuff you could literally get and eat at home. Lastly and most importantly... make sure you make it in the window you're going in (11am - 3pm is lunch) (after 3 is dinner). I believe they kick you out if you're still there when...