Empire Buffet — Restaurant in Crescent Springs

Me and my partner go here often and have been for years and have even recommended it to family who go as well, I had my most recent visit just a few days ago. None of us have had a negative experience and I'm very surprised by the amount of negative reviews on here, some even seem unfortunately malicious. Can't believe someone even tried to smear the place on a fake account no less by placing an obviously planted dead bug you can buy at the pet store for a reptile atop, not even inside, their food and claimed it "came that way". Sad and despicable that anyone would feel the need to do that for any reason. This place obviously works hard to please their customers and that's been shown by the service and quality of the food every time we've gone, there has never been once where we have went where the food hadnt been good or hot or the waiters/waitresses seemed unpleasant, they are always kind and attentive and for only about 12-14$ per person it's very affordable. The size and the selection of their buffet is hard to beat. The only time things have been a little unsatisfactory is when we unknowingly arrived once soon before close and unfortunately foods we wanted weren't being refilled any longer, but that's expected as to minimize waste since obviously majority of it would've gone uneaten, so I always recommend to come any time around the afternoon to about 7. It is a family owned buffet after all so it's obviously not going to be the same as a 5 star restaurant and people shouldn't expect it to be. The hibachi is down and has been down since the start of the pandemic so do be aware of that, that's the only real valuable complaint I have. Regardless I really enjoy this place and I have for a long time. Some of our favorite dishes are the lo mein, sushi, general tso's chicken, sticky rice, rangoons, butter chicken, the various dessert cakes, chicken and mushrooms, and steak...

This restaurant gets one star based on their business practices. 1st of all they keep the place sweltering hot to try to run you out as quick as possible. After that when it's time to pay, they do not give you the proper change back in hopes you won't notice... when they bring the change back they stand there waiting for you to hand them the tip! Plastic eating utensils and Styrofoam cups by the way. When I asked for a spoon for the ice cream she literally pulled it out of her apron pocket and handed it to me covered in pocket lint and grime. They do not keep crab legs (an advertised item on their dinner buffet which raises the price) actually on the buffet. When you request them they ignore you. When you demand them because you have paid for them to be an available item, they will bring out about 6 crab legs only which have been boiled in an ENORMOUS amount of salt making them completely inedible. I'm talking salt lick salty, like you're eating PURE SALT. This is intentional, it is the business model here to keep you from A: Eating them cause they're not there. B: Eating them ever again. C: Asking multiple times that they be put out. D: Asking for any more. By purposely ruining them they ensure they don't really ever spend money on a premium bar item. This is completely unacceptable business practices that you should know about if you wish to dine here. I am not a fool. I am not paranoid. I am not obese either. I am just awake. I see your false advertisement and other super shady tactics to cheat your customers on this bar item. If they are too expensive to offer then don't offer them but DO NOT falsely advertise and intentionally ruin the...

The wife and I have been going here for years. Pre-covid it was always very well taken care of the food was always delicious and the staff was always prompt. Post covid it seemed to take them a while to get back up to speed with the buffet as the cleanliness started to decline. We have only been going a few times over the past year because of a bad experience and tonight actually is the straw that broke the camel's back. Still charged full price for the buffet, we got there at 7:00 p.m.. the place was not clean at all. Carpets were sticky the tables were sticky. As we're looking over the buffet itself the selection seems very minimal no food had been replenished in a while. So as hungry as we were we still fixed our plates and realized that 80% of what we put on our plates were ice cold. Not room temperature, ice cold! Upon complaining our server only said well dinner rushed is slow. How do you respond to that? My wife said that doesn't matter we are paying full price for the buffet we would like some fresh hot food. After 45 minutes of waiting the buffet looks just like it did when we got there. Empty trays of everything old food that just kept getting started around and they did absolutely nothing about it. To top it off as we are leaving I excuse myself to the restroom to find out that neither one of the urinals flushed and neither one of the sinks work. I don't even want to ask what the staff is doing? That pretty much summed up how our dining experience tonight was and we are just...