Pizza Ranch — Restaurant in Duluth

UPDATE: Friday March 8, 2024, 1:30pm - Arrived to no one at registers - a good thing as I wanted to inspect the dining room and buffet before investing in lunch - the dining room was very clean with approximately 30 guests in attendance. The buffet was well stocked and everything looked freshly prepared and an acceptable temperature. Went back to register to pay and found the dining room attendant there to greet me - military discount offered - $15.69 including drink. Upon closer inspection of the buffet I was delighted to see 10 different pizza options (with the option to order any type of pizza desired!?) and a special station for allergy sensitive guests, 3 pizza desert options, freshly fried chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, and gravy. Two different types of lettuce for salad, with an ABUNDANT assortment of toppings and dressings (they even have 3 varieties of Ken's Steakhouse® large, sealed dressing packets and my favorite: BEATS, they actually had BEATS!!! :P) - everything was wiped down, clean and tidy and the buffet attendant was visibly stocking and cleaning all the stations, the entire visit - 8 different types of soda, 3 types of iced tea and 3 types of hot coffee - the dining room attendant was also servicing tables and clearing used plates and utensils - the ice cream machine was working and tasted fresh (didn't see any toppings of any kind - this would be the proverbial 'cherry on top') Three times the charm! UPDATE: Tuesday April 5, 2022, 4pm - Arrived to ambivalent greeting. Dining room was orderly, buffet was reflective of last visit with same prices in place. The ice cream machine was working. Service was adequate, however; the buffet was unattended - twice. Friday March 4, 2022, 4pm - Arrived to a fair greeting and acceptably clean dining room. Price was $17.99/Adult and $10 for a child ($1 per year old). The ICE CREAM MACHINE WAS OUT OF ORDER, the buffet was not well maintained and the hot items and pizza looked several hours old. The salad bar items looked aged as well and there were no attendants present to clean and restock the buffet. We did not feel overly welcome or appreciated. A true disappointment as we are historically loyal customers and had been looking forward to trying this brand new location for some time. I will be returning in one month (by myself) as I believe in second...

Our family was visiting Duluth to celebrate our grandma's 90th birthday. We hadn't been together in 4 years because my husband, kids, and I have been living in Germany. We love Pizza Ranch and were so excited to eat there again together. We arrived at 6:00 pm to see a sign that said the buffet was $10.99 after 7 pm. Our family of 17 decided to wait until 7 to eat so that we could save some money. When we returned at 7, we were told there had been no sign and we needed to pay full price. The hostesses were rude and continued claiming that there never was a sign. Eventually they went and got the shift manager. We sent most of the family outside so that we were not disrupting the entryway. My sisters-in-law and I waited inside for the shift manager to return, as he went to call the head manager. While he was away, the hostesses continued speaking badly of us to other customers while we were still standing there. Eventually, the shift manager returned and said that unfortunately the head manager would not honor the discount. He was apologetic and kind and tried to be helpful. However, the hostesses continued making ride comments about us. I finally addressed the hostess and said I'm a calm but form voice that we were still standing there and could hear her. She responded that we shouldn't have been mean. I told her that we were not trying to be mean, we were just trying to find a solution to a problem. She continued doubling down, and we left. Our family choose to eat elsewhere because of how the hostesses handled the situation. I hope that Pizza Ranch will use this situation as a teaching tool on how to handle things more professionally...

This was by far the worst Pizza Ranch my family has ever been to. Everything just looked dirty, dingy, and an unappetizing place to eat your food. The pizza was lukewarm, dry, and greasy all at the same time, and tasted more like the cardboard to-go box a pizza is supposed to go in. Everything that was fried just tasted off, and was horribly overcooked on top of that. Nothing was the proper temperature, all lukewarm, bland and poorly seasoned, and very apparent that they used the cheapest, lowest quality ingredients possible. They were so skimpy with the sauce on their pizza that there was barely enough to color the crust red, let alone taste it. The first bite of the macaroni and cheese made me grimace, with mushy noodles and cheese sauce that tasted like it was poured straight out of a can. Velveeta (or just the frozen food section in general) is five star dining compared to this slop. We could have went to McDonald’s for a quarter of this price and had much better food. By far the best thing any of my family had to eat from this place was the salad, which we had to assemble ourselves anyways, so does it really even count? To top it all off after paying for and eating this hardly edible food, the bathroom smelled like throw up and dead fish that had been rotting in there for a week. Shortly after leaving, we all felt sick to our stomachs and had to run for the toilet because this so called food is just indigestible. If you ask me, this location should consider a name change to “Pizza...