Finn Oliver's Family Restaurant — Restaurant in Lumberton

On Monday August 4, 2025 I took my daughter for lunch. When you first walk in you feel like it may be a good southern Mom & Pop buffet experience. When we got to our table the waitress came over, asked what we were drinking, we said 1 coke and 1 water, she said do u want lemon? I said no thank u, and she asked if we had been there before. We responded, no it was our 1st time there. She quickly explained a little bit about what to expect from each bar. We got our plate, went back to table and we had 2 sweet teas with lemon. Not what we ordered but we like tea so we just kept them. The food looked pretty good at first. But as we started eating the food tasted old and nasty. The fried chicken seemed like they had cooked it 2 days prior, then recooked it 2 more times. It was so dry. Then my daughter says “ have u tried the fried fish because it tastes bad, like idk what that taste is” another customer from a different table heard her and he said “PINESOL…. It tastes like PINESOL and soap and cleaner. He also said he told his daughter that if he died it was from that fish. Cabbage and greens were vinegary and kinda tasted like cleaning products & dirt. Meatloaf wasn’t horrible but seemed old. The stew meat was tender but had zero flavor and zero gravy. Rice&gravy was the most decent thing and the tea was ok. The Mac n cheese wasn’t the absolute worst I’ve ever had. Like u can eat it. But it wasn’t good. A fly was in potato salad. Bbq was decent. Green beans decent but no flavor. I could not eat much of it because it was not good overall. I did not go back for 2nds or to try anything different. The banana and Oreo puddings even seemed old. Seen what looked like a bug leg in pudding but could’ve been from bananas but I didn’t see actual bananas in it, so idk….both were Not completely terrible but not good. Cake was dry. Waitress had came back to ask if we wanted refills, I said yes and asked her to switch my daughter’s tea out for the coke she originally ordered. She never brought refills or coke. I don’t see a return visit here in the future. Overall not a...

I made this review one star because of many different reasons.

If you like flat cornbread that's old style, you may like it, but it wasn't my taste or good to me The service is highly slow, and drinks took about 20-25 minutes. JUST THE DRINKS The food doesn't taste that well. You can get better food at taco bell. Which is like right down the road. The names of food on the menu make me highly uncomfortable in general, but they are accurate. One of the items names have butt in it, and it accurately tastes like butt The only decent thing is the restaurant is mostly clean, or from what I could see.

When we were there at our table there was a table basically beside us, but back a bit. We had gotten our drinks before them of course because they had just got there. We got our food maybe 30 minutes after our drinks, and honestly all they had were there drinks. It's very sad once someone gets there drinks they have to wait 30 minutes [almost an hour actually] to get there orders taken. So...

This particular day the food was a 5 star. The reason I give it a 4 is because they're not consistent with the quality. The first time I went was by myself. I was so impressed I asked my wife to go with me the next time. Good was horrible. We couldn't eat it. We tried it again and it was bad. I told the wife I didn't understand. It must be different cooks. So Sunday after church I was hungry and by myself again. I went back and oh my, I had hurt myself. That food was delicious! Y'all need to figure out who cooked Sunday and pay attention to who is cooking other days and taste their cooking. Country cooking needs to be consistently cooked the same. Other than that, I'd recommend someone going there. Even if the food isn't all that, that one time the good cook is there it will be worth it. And no disrespect to you Bruce, a lot of owners don't like criticism but I hope you can learn from what I'm saying. I just tell it like it is whether I know you or not. Customers deserve good food for the price they're...