Shoney's — Restaurant in Elizabethtown

Usually a great place to eat! We just had a bad experience at lunch time yesterday though…right about 12 noon. We have been eating here for lunch or dinner about once a week since May 25th, as my parents are in a nearby assisted living facility. I’ve always been a fan of Shoney’s, and I used to have meetings at this one in the meeting room. The food is usually awesome, and the staff is great. Even if you catch the buffet at an off time it is still always good. Except yesterday. An important part of the buffet for me is a delicious salad. Usually your salad bar delivers just that. However, yesterday, the lettuce looked like it was a week old and had been in a steamer…wilted with brown edges and gooey spots. I’m afraid to eat salad that looks like that. My husband and I were both disappointed. I thought I could just use the field greens instead, but they were even worse. They did not have the gooey areas, but they were so wilted that I couldn’t separate them. They looked like they had been in a steamer. I spoke to the attendant, a middle-aged woman with dark blonde long hair in a ponytail, about the problem, and she just shrugged and never did answer me except for a “humph” sound. She reached over and turned the salad, but trust me, it was bad all the way through…I couldn’t even pick anything good out of it…I tried. everything else on the bar was great, and the service was wonderful. I really like your new blacktop and your slightly larger spaces are very helpful as I drive a large pickup. I was hoping the friendly and attentive black manager we have come to know and appreciate from previous visits would come over to ask how everything was, as he usually does…but we didn’t see him. It still was a great meal at a fair price with great service…I just thought you’d want to know this because it was enough to send some people packing to another restaurant. Normally, this is a great place to eat. I wish I had taken photos to add, but I didn’t. The lettuce and greens were really the only problem, but they were totally unacceptable and should not have been served. Possibly even bad enough to make somebody sick… and the bad attitude of the employee was not characteristic of the rest of your staff in my opinion. We will still...

First. Our server was good. She was attentive and caring. Took my teen son to have breakfast/lunch this morning. It was about 20 min. til the buffet changed to lunch. We started with breakfast. My son got a plate of potatoes and chicken tenders. I got French toast, one French toast stick, potatoes and a biscuit with gravy. The French toast was not edible, I actually spat it out😬 Very hard around the edges, had to tear using my fingers and the taste was terrible! Tasted very stale, it just had a bad taste. The French toast stick was ok ( of course, b.c it's a frozen food) I ate the top of the biscuit with gravy. The biscuit was hard. My son ate some of his chicken tender. I checked and it was hard and dry. He mainly ate the potatoes with ketchup. Then... Lunch came out! Yayyy! Me thinking it would be better and "fresh", nope... I had chicken cordon Blu ( a couple bites, the ham inside it was unusually hard for a fresh food) it seemd more like a dinner that you buy in the frozen isle at the grocery. I had a bite of corn, it was chewy, mashed potatoes that tasted straight out a box. And a plate of pineapple. My son had a salad ( which was the same lettuce and toppings that had been sitting there all morning for breakfast. The salad was old, was close to room temperature and had that "orange" color that old lettuce has. He also had Mac and cheese. He ate majority of that. My favorite was the pineapples and my son liked the Mac and cheese. The buffet is very small, not many options. $32 for both of us. ABSOLUTELY NOT WORTH THE MONEY!!! we could have went to outback and had a steak, a side and fresh bread for just 3 more dollars FOR BOTH OF US! I left our waiter a $9 tip as well.. so $40 for a crap breakfast-lunch. The food is old, from the previous day?? Possibly🤷🏼‍♀️ maybe ordering off the menu is better. Idk But for my son to complain about food, it must be bad! He said 'well that was a waste' lol we didn't...

We stopped at Shoney’s in Elizabethtown, KY for a late breakfast while traveling and were truly blown away by the service and leadership. Maria, our waitress, went above and beyond—welcoming us with genuine warmth, anticipating our needs, and treating us like longtime regulars.

Amanda came out during the breakfast-to-lunch buffet transition and thoughtfully evaluated which items were working and which ones needed improvement—not just for that day, but with a clear long-term mindset. She discussed rotating certain dishes through future ordering to better reflect what the local community enjoys. Her attention to quality, guest satisfaction, and overall improvement is something most guests would miss—but we happened to witness it firsthand. That kind of care and initiative is rare in chain restaurants like this. Amanda should absolutely be in management—or at the very least, strongly considered for a raise based on the dedication she displays.

Just before leaving, we noticed a special wall dedicated to supporting the military. It honored Mr. Dennon, an Army Veteran and long-time loyal customer who had recently passed. His usual table was surrounded by military memorabilia, creating a heartfelt tribute that says so much about the kind of community Shoney’s serves—and how they serve it.

I tend to leave very high or very low reviews—because excellence deserves to be celebrated and avoidable issues need to be called out so improvements can happen. In this case, Shoney’s exceeded expectations in every way. We left full, happy, and genuinely moved. The rest of the restaurants on our trip have some big shoes (and...