Champion Grill Buffet — Restaurant in Merced

Alright where do I start? So I came here on my birthday for my choice of 1 birthday meal and I finally decided to try a buffet in 2024 lol. I come in and I'm greeted by this nice lady at the cash register and she is smiling and laughing and I'm getting good vibes. I came at dinner time where it barely turned 3:35 pm and I paid $18.97 adult and another for about $22-23 because that one comes with unlimited soda refills, yeah I know about a $3-4 price jump because of soda. Inflation am I right 🤣 So now I head in and I have very low expectations and the place was big inside but very few people because I'm guessing buffets of this price range are no longer popular because of the food quality. I go ahead and grab my plate and I look around at the food and the first thing I noticed was the fruit and how old and dry they looked because I'm assuming it was there sitting all day from opening time and I just arrived when dinner time started so I got unlucky. I go ahead and see what I'ma get from the hot foods and everything looks dry because like I said before it's probably sitting there from when they barely opened. I fill my plate slowly with very small portions because I know that if I serve myself too much I'll have a lot of unfinished food and I'll look like a meanie who wastes food when the workers come to collect your plates to dump the food you didn't eat. As expected the foods were very dry and some of the foods had a very funny taste to them. But when I went for seconds I saw the chefs or workers putting in fresh foods into the hot food area. I then go ahead and retry those foods and they tasted much better than the first batch but still a bit oily. I mainly came here because of the sushi and I eat a lot of sushi. They have a pretty decent selection of sushi. I accidentally grabbed some sushi from the front and just as I expected the rice was a bit crunchy/stale so I went back and grabbed from the back and this time the sushi wasn't hard or warm, it was nice and cold. They have unagi which was good just as you'd expect and the nigiri sweet shrimp was ok not much flavor just a bit sweet. The salmon tuna avocado roll was ok but it was a bit lackluster for flavor and felt kinda old. The California roll was exactly what you'd expect from your own savemart store except a little cheaper taste. I get it it's a buffet with cheap tasting food and the quality will be more favored towards quantity since they gotta make a lot of it. The pork buns and steamed buns were ok but after having one you wouldn't want another one. The roast beef had a very weird but funny taste and I got a small piece of it but only ate like an inch of it. The best thing from the hot foods were the coconut shrimp, the chicken on a stick and fried shrimp. Also the pizza tasted as if I was eating a quesadilla because of the cheese they used for it 😂 Also one of the worker ladies who collects your dishes seemed to be very happy, she'd giggle and smile a lot. Makes me wonder if they love their job because it's an easy job to do because all you gotta do is clean tables, sweep, collect dirty dishes etc. and they get paid to just smile 🤭 Shoot I'd be happy too, I worked at stanford dining. Now the main thing I was looking forward to the crepes. I came in thinking I was gonna get one of those appetizing looking TikTok crepes in the videos but instead I got this very nice looking crepe on the outside but on the inside it was terrible hahaha, the fruits you get to choose from to put inside the crepe were old looking bananas that had that over ripe taste to it and then peaches that look like they were left over night unrefrigerated and then pineapple that had lost its Bright yellow color. It was not good and I couldn't finish it all. Now let's talk about deserts. The deserts were... Yes you guessed it! Flavorless and stale since they were probably left out from the morning. The only good desert were the almond cookies with the almond in the middle. Some plates were dirty and utensils were all mostly dirty so I used chopsticks. Never coming here...

I’m a food critic and I can honestly say that the food here is OK. I for one don’t like any cold Food especially if it’s supposed to be hot. Food gets cold pretty quick here. Female Servers here are not polite they are rude and take forever to pick up leftover plates. Then when you ask for them to clean your table so you can eat more they wanna try and have a attitude. Yes I’ve encountered a few different females like this here. The men servers are quick and polite so they get my tip! Back to food now, ohhh the amazing Crepes 🤤🤤GIVE ME MORE!! They are amazing! They have strawberry or Banana! Of course with chocolate and Carmel or strawberry syrup and powdered sugar. Yes after eating all this food you definitely need some fruit or a crepe!! I’ve seen previous reviews for this place on how nasty and dirty it is in the lobby, but I need to disagree. This place is pretty clean where we all eat. NOW In the back who knows right. Wish they would stop changing the name of this place and follow whatever “health code” they need to and keep it sanitary! I have not once had a disgusting bug or hair in my food so that’s definitely a huge bonus! And the food doesn’t taste “leftover” either! Some places you can actually taste the “leftover” taste of the food which is very disgusting and I will never go back to a place that...

I would give minus stars but that is not an option.

This restaurant was so good when it first opened as Hibachi, but then it started going down hill and changed it's name to Champion Grill and was not better.

The staff is not the issue, it's the leadership and ownership of the restaurant. Food is reused, cold, and old.

Every once in a while the food would be fresh and hot.

The last time we went the water was turned off while we were eating. I found out while over hearing another custom complain about not being able to wash his hands.

The manager said he could just wait for the water but then I asked how they were washing their hands, cleaning appropriately, and cleaning safety for the customers...I asked her to put out sanitizing buckets so staff and stay clean and clean properly, she stated that the water was out on the whole restaurant.

Staff was cutting raw meat and not washing or at least using a sanitized soaked towel in between helping customers, nothing was being wiped down properly.

I did make a call to the city and they did respond appropriately and Champion Grill did what was needed to be cleared to continue to be in business,

However, there is so much breakdown of the inside of the restaurant, structure, and bathrooms.

This restaurant needs a complete renovation. We will not...