Duff's Buffet — Restaurant in Clearwater

Food is always great. We try to stop by when in the area. Salad bar and entree's are always re-freshed quickly and well maintained. However, table staff while friendly and accommodating - seemed in short supply, and hurried on our last visit. We had to request for our drinks to be refreshed and were not asked even when the table attendant cleared the dishes . Even when we attempted to find our attendant in order to do so.... we were unable to locate him. So we did the next best thing and stopped a different, very busy attendant. We did acknowledge that we understood she wasn't ours and asked if she could locate ours? Instead, she did try to help and brought the refills herself. Unfortunately, though, because she was rushing, she didn't hear our "to go" request and returned with the re-fills in table glasses. When we again explained the request was " to go", she didn't complain. And as we have had her as a previous attendant/ wait staff before.... I have no doubt she recognized us and (although we always tip well) was happy to help and would have been so either way. But - on the 2nd trip, a different attendant returned (which was fine) but the order was now mixed up. So instead of receiving 2 Cokes to go as requested, when we finally returned to the car , we discovered we actually received 1 iced tea and 1 Coke, instead of 2 Cokes as requested x 2. There's nothing like diving into a Coke and getting Iced tea instead. LOL! Ooookay, so no biggie. These are small things, and not the norm at this restaurant. Nor would it prevent us from returning. However, it is noticeable that this occurred on an early, less busy, Wednesday afternoon, before the 4-5 pm "crush". There was no line up front, and still lots of empty tables all around. But: If you don't have enough staff (whether you are busy or not) then you don't have enough. The folks who serve us in restaurants work very hard and are on the front line to provide us with a great dining experience. So, no disrespect intended. But, the workforce remains in disarray everywhere and it shows. We see: daily and accurate reports that: 10's of 1000's of skilled workers are losing their jobs all over the country even with satisfactory performance reviews. And....other important job vacancies in the food service industry, still difficult to fill. In the end ..it doesn't matter whether you're just trying to get a Coke to go or placed on hold for 86 min. in order to speak to customer service Rep somewhere else.....service...

My husband and I have date mornings because we can't have date night no more. This place is okay. The service is great right when you walk in and it's 36 or $37 for two people. They have a salad bar and soup. The food is comfort food so it's really good. I love the fried fish. Blake made me a fish eater. I love the fry chicken. There's a lot of things to choose from. Blake is amazing cook and friendly to whoever comes in. The dessert Buffet is to die for and if I keep eating the Pecan pie that's what is going to happen to me. My husband is in love with the chicken gizzards. My son one time came with me and ate a Fried Tomato. Only because he thought it said fried potato lol He loved it. If you're curious come on in and just give it a try. It just might turn out to be your favorite restaurant. Update. Okay yesterday my husband and I went to Duff for date night it was our 1st date night 3/16/22 and it was packed. but that wasn't the problem. The problem was the casher. I noticed that she was taking pictures on her personal phone of the customer Receipt after they paid for there meal. Why does she need to take a picture of our receipt? And why is she putting it in her phone? She was young brown skinned with a white hoodie about 16 maybe Mexican or something. This never happen before Can someone please tell me why. Called to talk to the manager about the young lady and was told she is a daughter of a employee and he doesn't think she'll do something like that what are you kidding me? Plus he said that our receipt only shows the last 4 digits of our card. Okay If she call the bank that is on our cards and gives the automated service our last 4 digits. She can access our account through the automated service without talking to anyone on the other line. And she can hear how much we have in our accounts. Plus she can do automatic transfer without talking to anyone because bank of America will let you do that. So tell me why I shouldn't be worried that a 16 year old is taking pictures of our receipt in her personal phone? Will be checking my account if anything is wrong I'll will press charges and I don't care if she's one of your employees daughters. Update 16 year old fired for taking pictures on her phone of people paying with debit/credit card receipt information. Don't know when but I heard from a worker she no longer works there she was caught on...

First time customer: Review type: buffet aimed at southern homestyle

Customer service: Great service, 5 stars it was even really busy and they were bussin tables down getting people in seats, drinks still coming out ahead instead of behind. Good staff

Best item: 1st place goes to the featured Chicken tenders made with real chicken came out hot, crispy, very similar Publix strips.

Second place I would have to say the simple but rich desert section which even featured cones for ice cream and some light chocolate cake with chocolate iceing. Cheesecake, bread pudding and cobbler.

Overview:

Buffet aimed at some southern homestyle cooking with items like fried chicken, greens, carrots, meatloaf, brocolli casserole, beets sausage and krout among other things.

Certainly a very clean place overly pleased with that. Outside of the chicken tenders and the chocolate cake everything was aimed at homestyle but def no seasoning seemed to be aloud on the premises particularly the spaghetti, the softly fried questionable chicken legs that would certainly not make the cut for the cookout, the softly fried fish that was too mushy for me, wasn’t white on the inside or flakey, kind of slimy on the inside type of situation. Only cow on the premises was meatloaf I was hoping for some type steak or chop even. Chicken was a bout 6-8 min too under for me. Canned-type greens, canned-type corn, box type mashed potatoes.

The salad bar was nice had a lot of features, the bacon wasn’t bits type of time. Had nice protein options and dressings.

All in all definitely a canned-style buffet that you would see at an allergy party I will return when I want to bang down some chicken tenders for 19 dollars. Peace and...