DJ's International Buffet — Restaurant in Town of Hempstead

So first things first, this is an above average Chinese buffet not your typical average Chinese food chain buffet. I like that besides the typical American Chinese dishes that there are plenty of also authentic Chinese dishes as well and all cooked with unique taste for each dish. There are so many varieties of dishes here and so much to choose from and I is definitely a great deal. Now for the bad. This place has definitely changed it seems especially when it comes to service and attitudes. I don't want to make it seem as if the attitudes are not warranted since I use to work in the service industry and I do know that people's attitudes do tend to rub off on employees after some time. Even though that is not an excuse because you should still be able to be professional and treat customers with a benefit of the doubt but I do understand that people are not perfect and that you won't always be your best self at all times. So that aside I've noticed that many of the waiters who use to have an upbeat attitude with a service oriented approach have now become somewhat apathetic and sort of dismissive towards customers. Last time I was there I made it a point to try and get my money's worth by eating mostly my favorite dish which are the snow crab legs. Usually the way it works here is that you wait by the food bar and about every 15 minutes someone comes out with freshly streamed crab legs and portions them out to patrons. This time I noticed none came out and I was.just waiting there and I noticed that now it seemed thar all the waiters and even management were deliberately ignoring me. Anyway I went out my way and asked and the manager didn't even respond to me but I was clear so I assumed he went to go grab some which he did. Now yes he did get them but I sense an angry vibe from him as if I wasn't suppose to ask but what else am I supposed to do,it's not like I can go get them myself so I'm pretty much at there mercy. I also noticed that the legs have gotten smaller not like how they were before but anyway I still like them. Anyway after I was done I went up again and once again I waited and nothing came out but this time when I asked they gave me an attitude again and pretty much just told me to wait but I had already waited about 20 minutes so how long was I suppose to wait. Anyway I didn't want to bother them too much so I said I'll just ask them what's the deal and how does it work how do they want me to go about getting more crab legs without being a nuisance to them. They proceeded to give me vague answers like just wait or it's coming and some just didn't say anything and siad that they are very busy. I then asked again but this time more stern and clear and finally the lady who I believe is the manager with the glasses told me that the crab legs are not all you can eat and since they are busy they won't be coming out as much. At that point I said to myself ok now I get it and they should have said that from the go instead of making me pull it out of them. I beleive they just want to keep the impression of all you can eat crab legs without having to tell people that they are not so to me it is very deceptive and if so how are you going to get angry at me for asking when that is how it works there since they have to go to the back and get them for you. Anyway that's one issue. Another issue is that they also got rid of the student discount that they use to have. Another thing is that they also don't include now the Ice-cream refrigerator on holidays and surprisingly on Chinese new year when they asked they said it's only for weekends. Whish they would tell people that so that they know what they are paying for. To just wrap things up this is still a very good above average buffet but I do see that things are starting to go a bad direction and I never really give reviews but I really love this place and just want to see this place go back to how it was before. I noticed that it changed though after the pandemic so who knows I'm sure that with inflation things may...

Me and 6 other companions dined in at this buffet and our experience was ruined by the racial profiling of me and my companions as well as the insufficient workers taking our bill. After we ate and was ready for the bill we were handed the hefty bill for our meal. After gathering up all the cash we asked if you could split the bill, which they seemed to have a problem with. We handed our money in with the receipt given to us but 2 out of the 7 of us paid up front at the counter as to not wait for the server to come back, we didn’t see this as a problem because all money was handed and clearly both servers would be able to tell if someone didn’t pay. Unfortunately the incompetence of the poorly organized waiters stopped us from leaving, this could also be due to the fact they didn’t hand us a second receipt after paying . We were told that only 6 people paid we asked the server to point out who didn’t pay and he turned the number 6 to 5. So now it’s 2 people who apparently didn’t pay. We explained that 2 people paid at the counter and suddenly the problem was solved and we were left alone. We started to head out and we noticed the servers near the door. We tried to open the door but it didn’t budge. We assumed there was another exit and walked to another door where we weren’t allowed to go through and a lady directed us to the original exit. We were greeted by three servers that stopped us to say one person still didn’t pay. We were already upset by the allegations previously stated but at this point it seemed to be obvious they had a problem. We all heading our receipts and we asked who they believed didn’t pay. If they were efficiently doing their job and truly someone didn’t pay shouldn’t they know? One of my friends made an effort to spread the group out and asked who he believed didn’t pay. At this point of the story I should add that 2 of us were black and the rest Hispanic. A friend noticed the obvious stares at one of my black friends and at this point we were heated. He was at a loss of words because he was looking at the 5 people he collected d a check from and the lady behind him who also collected money from the other 2. He then finally let us go after realizing that the fault lied in the poor efforts, incompetence, ignorance, and overall failure to do their job correctly. As we finally were let go we exited to find police parked outside the other exit. Very interesting if you ask me, clearly the unwillingness to be organized is seen throughout this...

We've been driving past this place for years always wondering, never really knowing. Now we really wished we'd stayed away.

First thing to note on walking in, we were not shown any pricing or anything of the sort. Just how many in our group and we were seated(at a somewhat dirty table but we made no comment).

I really hope that it was just due to the staff being exhausted after a long day but for an "international" buffet, there weren't many platters to choose from. Mainly seafood(if that's your thing, I say go for it) but be prepared to pay an arm and a leg for it. It was myself (adult), my friend (another adult) and her two children (5 and 1 years old). For the sake of this review i'm really wishing I'd taken pictures of the plates of food we'd gotten because the bill is insane! $94 for 2 and 1 and 1/3 of a human? We adults got two plates each, with things like white rice, vegetable lo mein, baked salmon, some teriyaki chicken, string beans, pieces of steak, etc. Cheap/moderately affordable items of food. NOTHING EXPENSIVE. The kids got bare minimums of the same as children are picky and do not eat much. For drinks, we had 2 lemonades and a sprite. While getting our food, I spied a small sign on the wall that said wasted food would be subjected to a 30% extra charge on the bill. Yeesh.

Sometimes to be expected with active, excited children the lemonades were accidentally spilled. Multiple staff walking around busy with other tasks I presume witnessed what happened and instead of coming to see if everything was okay, chose to ignore. Um, okay. Luckily there were napkins at the table but things were quickly getting out of hand. After a bit of waving and calling for help someone finally came to our aid. I'm not expecting to be waited on hand and foot of course but please do the bare minimum and pretend to care? They did not offer to refill our drinks unless we asked (🙄) and almost seemed to avoid us?

We went back for our second helpings and came back to our table with some grapes for the kiddos only to have to pry the rest of them from the hands of the 1 year old (he had already ate 2 before we realized) because they're literally ROTTING. Why were they even put out in the first place?

If you're starving and feeling for a buffet, don't come here. It'll break your heart...