Pizza Ranch — Restaurant in Independence

First of all, I've got to say that no matter what else I say in this review, my hat goes off to every employee working at the 40 highway Pizza Ranch location. It was insanely busy, with at least one party of 30 and I'm pretty sure that there was another party, as well.

It was kind of hellacious, to be frank. Some of the customers, in my opinion, we're quite rude to the staff. One customer was berating one of the servers who was clearly on more of the front of house end of things. This poor lady was running between the back and the register, the buffet, they probably even had her on bathroom duty. Through all of that, this lady maintained her composure, she kept a positive and professional tone even despite the onslaught. I've never seen so many kids in a single setting, aside from school. There was just a total lack of consideration or care in the world on behalf of some of the customers.

Now for the food, this is where I have to take off a star, but let it be known that it is not a reflection of the staff or anything like that, I think we just picked an insane time to go. But anyway, so some of the kids had their hands in all kinds of the food, the salad bar lettuce was a little wilted and sad, and the fried chicken, while deliciously seasoned, was quite dry.

Everything else, however, was quite good. Their thin crust pizza might have converted me to thin crust altogether. Really enjoyed the crispy bits of cheese around the crust, the cheese pizza tasted like a grilled cheese sandwich, it was very reminiscent of a Godfathers pizza...

There were so many issues last night. I am a picky person when it comes to my lettuce and normally they have an iceberg blend and a romaine option on the salad bar. If they only have iceberg, I usually request a plate of spinach so that I can eat a salad. It took 10 minutes for them to bring me a small handful of spinach, saying they didn't have anything but that. Ok. The salad bar was nearly empty of all side options. Dressings were nearly empty as well. There were 5 pans for pizza on the buffet, each had 1-2 slices in them. There were 3 pieces of chicken for the 3 families currently trying to eat. They had a huge bowl of pasta, but no sauce. Took 15 minutes to get sauce, but then the noodles were slimy and cold. I asked to speak to a manager. I was told that they closed at 8pm, and we showed up 15 minutes before that. We had no idea they closed that early and the cashier didn't mention anything about it yet took our payment of $50 for a buffet they had no intention of filling again. Had ANYONE mentioned it, we would have just eaten somewhere else. No big deal. The manager was not very helpful, though they did make fresh chicken and brought it to the table. Also, they made a few pizzas (none that we were actually interested in) but they rushed it and they were all doughy. I felt bad for showing up just before close, but if they do not plan to make more food...they should make sure people coming in to eat know that. I would have never spent that much on what amounted to leftovers on a buffet. We will not be...

Tonight my other half and I went to the Independence Pizza Ranch and attempted to have dinner. We arrived at 7. The place was 3/4's full. We paid and ordered a pizza that wasn't on the buffet. We were given a strip of paper with the number 17 written on it.

When we walked over to the buffet the real trouble started. The desert buffet was empty. The pizza buffet was half filled with very old pizzas. The salad bar was a wreck. The place was filthy. The floors were a wreck. Tables piled with plates. What little pizza was left was gone shortly after we sat down.

The table next to us had been waiting 1.5 hours for a pizza they ordered. For the first 15 minutes we saw an employee talking to customers and bussed 1 table. After 20 minutes all the staff disappeared in the back. In that time they brought out 1 desert pizza and reloaded the fried chicken. After 35 minutes we gave up and left. Customers were standing around expecting food to be brought out. Some like us left.

No employee ever talked to us after taking our money. We ate a little, but no one picked up our dirty plates. No one was even staffing the front counter when we left.

What is really sad, is this isn't the first time that the service has been bad. This is by far the worst, but this is the second time in a row where we have left hungry. Paying for a buffet and being lucky to get two or three slices of pizza is not worth the 30 dollars...