El Palacio Buffet — Restaurant in Oak Ridge

Me and my grandmother went to eat here on 07/31/2024 around 12:50 pm. We served ourselves and when we sat down at the table we noticed that their carne guisado(beef stew) had a foul odor so we did not eat it. I went back to the buffet section to get another meat choice for us and noticed that the entire section that had all their meat choices had a foul odor. I walked over to the “asian” section and got pepper steak which didn’t have an odor. When we took a few bites of the pepper steak, we noticed this had a foul taste, as if the meat was old and spoiled. Our server pointed out that she also noticed a foul odor in her dining section and started to mop the floor to “conceal” the smell. We didn’t end up eating and informed the manager, Carmen, of this. Carmen stated she would inform the cooks of this and didn’t even offer a refund or apology as we left. We spent $37 for two people. That same night 07/31/24 I developed a pounding headache around 10 pm. The next morning around 7 am 08/01/24, I woke up with the same pounding headache, stomach pains, and nausea. Around 7:50 am, I started vomiting and having diarrhea which did not subside till 5-6 pm the same day. I have been calling El Palacio since Thursday 08/01/24 to speak with the manager and see if there was a possibility of receiving a refund since we didn’t even get to eat and now had food poisoning. The cashiers have been brushing me to the side and covering for the manager stating “she’s not in today.” Pretty strange that the manager hasn’t “been in” since Thursday and today is now Sunday 08/04/24. I told the cashier who answered the phone today what happened and she had the nerve to tell me that what I experienced never happened because they are always busy with customers and no one has reported such a thing. She then hung up the phone on me!!! The lack of professionalism and accountability is absurd. Please do not eat here nor give this establishment your money if you care about your health and hygiene. This place definitely does not care about the...

When I arrived, I noticed that you have to pay upfront before being seated. I know this is pretty common for buffets, so no big deal there. After signing the receipt, I waited a little before being seated.

Food Selection & Quality: The buffet has a nice variety of dishes, which I appreciated. For my first round, I grabbed maduros, quipes, ensalada de papa, baked chicken, pollo guisado, and gizzards. The variety was great, but the quality was a bit inconsistent:

The maduros were cold and tasted like they’d been sitting out too long—not great. The quipes were dry and stale, which was disappointing. The potato salad, on the other hand, was really good! The baked chicken was also cold, but the juices from the gizzards and pollo guisado helped it out a bit. On my second round, I tried fried dumplings, buffalo wings, empanadas de guava and cheese, General Tso’s chicken, and arroz con gandules:

The rice and empanadas were amazing—definitely the highlights of this round. The wings and General Tso’s chicken were cold, which was a letdown. The dumplings weren’t bad, but nothing special either. For dessert, I went with flan, tres leches cake, and a cranberry raisin cookie. The flan was hands down the best thing I had—dense, not overly sweet, and just perfect. I’d come back just for that flan. The tres leches cake was good where it was soaked in the milk mixture, but the top layer was dry and not great. The cookie was okay—nothing to write home about.

Service: The service was where things really fell short. My server didn’t check in, clear plates, or offer refills. It felt like no one was paying attention, which was frustrating.

Price: Lunch for one on a weekday came to $17.03 with tax. For what I got, I didn’t feel like it was worth it, especially with the lack of service, so I didn’t leave a tip.

Final Thoughts: The variety of food and that amazing flan were definite positives, but the cold food and inattentive service were disappointing. I don’t think I’ll be coming back...

Very weird and bizarre experience. I'm 100% White American of European descent, speak zero Spanish, and know I was eating at a Latin food restaurant with a vast majority of the customer base being Latin as well but I was giving the, 'why is he here?' treatment by the staff. Kinda shady to act that way towards someone but I'm not sweating it, so you pay as soon as you walk in, which honestly I'm not complaining about but what is the most bizarre thing is that I was literally their first customer of the day and there before they even unlocked the doors and when I got my first plate and sit down to eat I notice a majority of my food is ice cold. Like how? I'm the first person there when they opened. How is the food already cold? I swept that off and try to enjoy my meal and I notice a guy in the back comes out like 15 minutes later and goes under the buffet counters and turns on the heating sources to all the counters and trays. So basically they had been cooking food for hours before, sitting them on the buffet, and waiting until they were open to begin heating them while they set. Seriously? You are trying to save energy that bad where you don't mind everything being cold for your customers? And the icing on cake when I finally lost it is when I got up for my second plate and when I was at the buffet the lady who makes you pay at the door came up to my table to my receipt and circled 'tip' multiple times in black ink and left the pen there so I would leave a tip. I wasn't even half way finished, been there maybe 15 minutes, and you have the audacity to demand a tip DURING the meal? How can you low key insult someone during the ENTIRE time there and think that's a great idea for a business? I had little sugar ants on my table also during the meal. Disgusting to almost every sense: their behavior, the taste, and visional...