Picnic Garden BBQ Buffet — Restaurant in New York

This is an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ location right on Northern Blvd. in Flushing, Queens. Since the restaurant is on a main street parking can be a bit of a challenge - either on Northern Blvd, which is not easy to come by, or on the residential side streets behind the restaurant, also not that easy to come by.

The restaurant is clean and spacious with tall ceilings. Korean club-style music plays in the background which was fine but the volume was a bit loud for my taste. It made conversation somewhat challenging since we were seated under one of the speakers. Seating is in booths or long tables (for larger groups) with a grill located in the middle of the table. Ventilation is very good - an exhaust vent sits right above the grill to capture most of the smoke created from your grilling activities so you don't walk out of the restaurant smelling liked smoked meats (which is often the case at other Korean BBQ places).

The food is buffet-style. Located at the rear is a hot/cooked area that has soups (miso, congee, seaweed), white rice, and precooked items such as wings, fries, boiled corn, and some other vegetables, etc. The raw buffet area contains the items you choose to bring back to your table to grill. The items there are your standard KBBQ items - short ribs, marinated beef, lamb, chicken (marinated and spicy), pork, squid, and prawns. Vegetables included green peppers, zucchini, and mushrooms. Of course, kimchi was available too, along with glass noodles though the tray they had out went cold when I got there (it was eventually replaced with a hot tray about 20 min. later). I shaved a star off my rating for the lack of a number of the traditional KBBQ side dishes that are traditionally served as well as one of the raw beef offerings looked to be a bit on the older side (the meat had both the pink/red hue you associate with freshness but many pieces had ends with a dark color to them, the color change that you see when you leave fresh meat in the refrigerator too long and it starts to age/darken). You are able to return to the buffet as often as you wish, which was frequent since the grill at the table is not really that large (portion control!). Dessert is lacking - you have a choice of small ice cream cups (chocolate or vanilla), orange slices, and what looked like an orange/pineapple mixture that may have come out of a can.

Service was excellent - our server checked on her tables and both stirred and rearranged the items on the grill to ensure even cooking and to prevent burning and to also cut up the grilled items into single portion sized servings (the raw items can be quite large). She also changed the grill plates so that we had clean ones for each round

Unlike the experience of another reviewer I was able to charge both the meal as well as the tip to my credit card. Perhaps they changed their policy since that last review.

Overall I liked Picnic Garden and would certainly return, esp. when you have a desire for...

CAUTION！CAUTION！ I think I got to share our horrible experience today about we arrived Picnic Garden BBQ Buffet about 1/7 Saturday around 6:13pm is the time we entered the restaurant! We lived at manhattan and be like to flushing to have been eating at this BBQ Buffet restaurant for more than 13years, but I am not sure the old location is the same owner as this new location, we are be like this restaurant for years. And today as we know after 7:00pm is the most busy round for dinner, so we from Manhattan and plan could be arrive flushing around or before 6:00pm, even the same traffic on the way but we still headed to location on around 5:45pm, but it’s not easy to find a parking spot around the restaurant, and after 25mins finally we got a parking spot in front of Hanyang Mart, but the sign is free parking after 7pm on Saturday, so we pay meter for about 45mins $1.25, still fine and we happy with that because we heading to our be like BBQ restaurant. So we walk two blocks down to PICNIC GARDEN, this time like we expect not so busy, we can see many tables are available, and we wait behind the counter, one female staff come to us, and I tell her we are two. And she tells now the restaurant policy is all need to make a reservation, and showing us the sign next to the door. The sign telling 4 or more people need to make reservations. And I let her know, we now are two only, then she said now we just take 4 or more guests, but I ask why there are many tables serving two people per table? The same time she bring out her own cellphone check the time, then told us if two people then you need to arrival here before 6:00pm! LOL! Just so funny I thought! But anyway I still telling her, I said we looking for parking here more than 25mins and now is 6:16pm and you tell me we can not fit yours every rules for just a dinner? She try to pretend not hear what we say and no any response. On that moment I think that she just need us to be left anyway, or this female staff maybe try to just let us know she just want to serve specific race but whatever not us today. We very disappointed the restaurant that we be like many years, now comes with this terrible rule, but I want to tell the story here because I just hope to hear from the restaurant’s manager maybe could reply here for my question that is it the truly rule now of this restaurant like this or just this female staff representative herself only. And I now try to check on 311 website to make sure if a restaurant could make any rule like this for any customer! It just very impersonal and unkindness if having rule is truly like the female staff telling. So funny and...

Usually this is my go-to korean bbq spot in Queens, BUT after the experience my husband had there tonight not quite sure we’ll be returning.

After constantly raving about the food and fact that it is self-service, my husband decided to invite our close family & friends for a boys night dinner here (Tuesday 7/11). My husband was shocked by the complete turnaround in service because usually the staff is helpful and welcoming here. Tonight however, was very different.

FIRST and most important, someone needs to check the grills at their tables because the one that was given to the party of 5 tonight was NOT shutting off properly. While the waiter struggled to shut it off, the knobs were turning full circle - indicating they were broken. In fact, my husband (who has asthma) and my brother could not continue to sit, they had to GET UP because the smell of gas was STILL BEING RELEASED even after the waiter “shut it off”. If the business ever reads this - get your mechanisms inspected. If potential customers read this - be careful of lightheadedness.

Their party of 5 were not given any drink menus, for soda, for alcohol, nothing. They had to hail down a server to ask for a soda. But suddenly there was always a person to grill our food for them whenever they returned to the table. As mentioned, we have been here many, many times before and we are aware that we are able to get our own food and grill it ourselves - this is precisely why we decided to have a group outing here because we enjoy that aspect of this place. Instead, the waiter was constantly placing and removing the food for us without asking which was surprising and not what is usually done here.

Our group sat at 8:30pm, giving the group more than enough time to eat and leave before they close at 11pm. It was EXTREMELY rude for the staff to hover around the group of men after the check was dropped, as if my husband and his friends were going to skip the bill and run out. Was it because it was 5 grown men who took their time looking at the bill? Because of their stature? Because they were of color? Who knows. But disrespectful none the less.

My husband had never been more embarrassed to invite people here and be rudely treated. Will probably not be coming back here, must be new staff or decline in desire to get new customers. But certainly ended up losing a...