Red Oak Restaurant — Restaurant in Wildwood

Terrible food, excellent server. I don't recall the waitress' name, but she had an eastern European accent, and was very friendly.

Now on to the food. Our teenagers said the food in their school cafeteria is better than this restaurant, and the US is known for terrible school meals. My husband used to run a prison kitchen with the inmates as his line staff, and he said they served better food than what this place has on offer.

We arrived, and the parking lot was dead on Saturday night at 6 pm. That was our first hint that something was wrong. We walked inside and saw the food... lordy. If you've ever seen National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation, the scene where Cousin Eddie takes Clark to an off-the-strip casino/buffet will prepare you for this buffet (instead of Clark's blue chicken/beef, this place had orange-colored brown gravy, maybe... we couldn't tell which was gravy and which was spaghetti sauce). We decided to brave it anyway. Hoo boy, was that a mistake.

My husband picked a piece of stuffed fish and two crab cakes. I took a pile of fries and a dinner roll (seemed safest), one teenager took a few wings, the other teen took nuggets and fries. The nuggets are exactly the same as the ones at McDonalds. The fries were cold and undercooked. The roll was good, but there was no butter or jam. The wings could have been used as a doorstop. My husband tried his and was disgusted by all parts of his food. We had to leave. It was too bad to actually eat.

We took the loss, paid the bill ($100 for 4 "meals" and drinks), left, and went elsewhere. By 2 pm the next day, my husband was in the bathroom with what we assume is food poisoning. Luckily, our vacation ended Sunday morning and we don't live far away, so we made it home before it hit, but he's the only one who actually ate food here, and he's the only one who also became ill.

The restaurant itself is old. The booth seats are worn out and the decor reminds me of a Denny's circa 1987. The tables were clean, but that's likely due to the old restaurant adage "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean". So the empty restaurant does leave the staff plenty of time to clean.

Moral of the story, unless you're looking for a hilarious vacation anecdote to tell your friends for weeks afterward, I'd just avoid this place and try somewhere, anywhere else. There was a very nice McDonald's right down the road... same nuggets for a fraction of the price and their fries are hot and cooked through. Just...

Keep in mind that no buffet is 5 stars unless you are in Las Vegas. There are 4 star buffets that charge $25-$35 or more and the quality is usually commensurate. This place is $15 (less for kids). The quality of what you get for $15 is quite good. The shrimp are not the ones with a micro shrimp embedded in a half inch of breading. Are they 16-20s? No, but they are a nice size. I was blown away to see bbq beef ribs on the line. They were very tender and flavorful. The homemade meatballs were large and, if really homemade, fairly good (remember, everyone has their own take on meatballs and evaluating them is extremely subjective) Chicken fingers and nuggets, salads, wings, etc, all right for the price. I saw no spot empty waiting for food for more than a few seconds. Great place to take the kids. The manager was doing a great job orchestrating the chaos on what I understand was busy beyond their norm. Service staff was attentive. The one area that could use improvement was the desserts, although my mother and wife both thought the rice pudding was ok, a little added cinnamon would have been appreciated. Other desserts were unremarkable.

Be aware this restaurant is not open year round...if you are coming off...

Honestly the worst place I've ever eaten. My 1st plate had tasteless fish and linguine and clams that tasted like it was made a week ago. Couldn't finish either. so I went and tried a meatball and bbq ribs. Any frozen bargain grocery store has better meatballs..that cant be beef. The ribs had meat so tough you could barely separate it from the bone and I dont know what that sauce actually was..not bbq. I finally gave up and got a salad just to put something in my stomach. You could barely taste the flavor of the dressing because it's been obviously watered down. And there is no feeling of safety..they use precautions only by requiring gloves at the buffet. The employees are to wear masks, our waitress kept hers on her chin away from her mouth. And they seated a large family in the booth directly behind us so we were back to back while behind them were a row of empty booths. I dont like to say hate but I hated this place so much that after we left I saw an older gentleman taking food from a trash can and eating it and I truly felt like he was having a better...