94th Aero Squadron Restaurant & Events — Restaurant in San Diego

Is there a ZERO STAR option?

We chose the 94th Aero Squadron for our Thanksgiving 2023 meal, because we had enjoyed the buffet there on many holidays past. This time the disappointment and shock at both the terrible, low quality food, and the ridiculous $ expense we paid to create this bad memory is regrettable at best.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by a sign posted in the line, that should have read TURN BACK, but instead it had rules, many rules. Things like no separate bills, PREPAY only with 20% gratuity and taxes included. Payment for all persons in your party, prior to being seated at your table. Table time allowance of 2 hours etc. Our three persons were $384.00! This would have been tolerable had the food been any where close to edible.

We were seated outside, and made our way to the buffet. I went for the traditional Thanksgiving foods first. All of the food was bland or appeared to have been sitting for some time. The tri-tip beef tasted like rubber. The mash potatos were so saturated in butter that they were yellow. The stuffing was extremely dry and the green beans were tough and not fully cooked. The creamed corn appeared to be canned. There were no carving stations, just food that seemed to be picked over or had been sitting out all afternoon. Nothing tasted fresh.

So I tried a second trip to the buffet, I found myself unable to find anything appetizing, at all. Here is a $100. holiday buffet, I am hungry and really looking for something, anything to eat but find only more disappointment.

I did not find any baked fish, except uncooked salmon, and sushi. I had some rice, some fruit and then tried the mac n cheese. None of these were edible, but there were plenty of nachos with burnt nacho cheese and stale chips. I continued to look for something to eat and realize that dessert was all that remained. So I moved on to the dessert area which again, sadly looked like leftovers, picked through, low quality and stale. Such a shame.

My son found an area with bagged chips, trail mix and Cheez-its, Gatorade, and other snacks. This seemed an odd thing for a holiday buffet.

The wait staff looked overwhelmed, but were handling the customers as best they could. One helped successfully to get my autistic son, something he could eat, with his sensory issues. No complaints about their wait person staff. They were really trying.

Everyone in our party felt the same way. The table next to ours said that the restaurant is going to sell and that the current owners could care less. Was this what now seems like a money grab for a business on its way out?

This will go down in my family as the worst buffet, holiday or otherwise we have ever been to. I have no idea what happened to this place, but besides being angry, I still feel sick...

For the reviews that gave this place higher than 2 stars, Im very shocked. Overall, this place is not worth coming to for the price they charge for everything.My husband and I came here with my mother in law and sister in law on a Friday night. I guess on Fridays they make it partly a night club so in order for us to sit down for dinner, we still had to pay a $20 cover charger for each of us($80 before we even walked in the door) We didnt care to check out the club scene and just wanted a nice family dinner. The place is super cute and cool. However, the food over all was awful and the only good thing was their beet salad. We ordered a tri tip sandwich, two plates of fish n chips, and a beet salad. When the waitress came by to ask how the food was, I was honest, but polite and said it was okay. I only took two bites out of my tri-tip sandwhich and was very unhappy so I just nibbled on the fries. I usually will eat anything, but this sandwich didnt taste good at all. She tried to help and asked if I wanted something different, but I said no as I didnt want to try anything else on the menu. My husband and his family said their food wasnt very good either, but they were champs and tried to eat as much as they could since we spent an arm and a leg for everything. Since I didnt choose a replacement meal, the waitress took it upon herself to bring us a couple of free desserts which was very kind. When we got the tab though, my tri tip sandwhich which I literally took two small bites out of was still on the receipt which I was disappointed to see. I couldve asked her to take it off, so thats on me for not asking. Overall, we spent $80 just to get in and another $273 on food that should not be that expensive as it was not good at all. We had really high hopes for this place but were very disappointed. Hopefully whoever is in charge of the food improves the menu or they should just lower the prices of their food because you could honestly get better food at Dennys. This place has alot of potential, but their food needs some...

Mediocre hotel level food, reservations mean nothing, stunning ambience especially outside

My husband was very proud that he had gotten brunch reservations here for Mother's Day. We arrived exactly at our time of 9:45. There was a whole line of roughly 40 people waiting who all had reservations. The line moved decently quick but it was still weird to have to wait with reservations. We finally got checked in around 10:05 I believe. But that didn't mean we had a table. Reservations don't mean you have a table apparently. My understanding was that they had a sign out front stating that reservations had priority. But let's say if I had showed up at 9:15. I would have been sat long before my 9:45 reservation. I'm willing to be wrong about this however. It's just based on my own understanding. We had to wait in a very pretty foyer for around 15 minutes. I got bored and went to check out the food.

It was hard to believe we were being asked to pay 80 bucks per adult and I believe $40 or $45 per child for what was essentially a Marriott level breakfast as well as some seafood. It was completely cramped with people elbowing each other. Loud noise and kind of hot and sweaty. I did see people with crab legs and in a corner. I also saw the prime rib that was advertised. But I couldn't get close enough to get a photo. Maybe it was amazing. Maybe it was worth that extra money and I just didn't know because I wasn't willing to wait around. My twin kids were hungry and although I gave them snacks before we left, we had not factored in the extra wait time.

The lady in the front taking care of reservations did seem very apologetic and mildly surprised when we were leaving. The staff themselves seem to be hustling pretty hardcore. I'm pretty sure this is the fault of some really poor managerial decision that everyone else just had to compensate for in chaos.

Maybe a brunch on a different day would be worth the price and wait. As for me and my family, we went to studio diner where I got a free mimosa and got sat...