Buffet restaurants are horses to ride. They’re wasteful, typically require a great deal of maintenance, and are hard to sell to new customers. You’ve seen one buffet, you’ve seen them all.

But you’ve never seen the buffet at Bamboo Garden. Not content to serve simple Americanized Chinese Food, this extravagant restaurant in Mount Vernon, Washington, offers not only a wealth of Chinese dishes, but also sushi, cakes, donuts, and many exciting seafood dishes. Your entire family will surely find something they like at this one-of-a-kind establishment.

Simple, Yet Refined Scenery

The restaurant is located in the Mont Vernon Shopping center, a highly popular area of Washington State. The wall is decorated with light creamy wallpaper and trimmed with earthy tones. In the spacious dining room, there is little decoration on the wall; but the Chinese feel is everywhere: the hanging red lanterns and Chinese themed paintings impress the customers a lot. The square tables, booths and round tables are neatly arranged to provide for comfortable seating.

The ambiance is partly created by the various lanterns that adorn the walls. The spotlights illuminate the dining room and the soft beam of lights make the customers feel relaxed, thus ensuring they can chat happily. There is also one party room that can hold up to 100 persons. It is reserved for functions, parties, meetings and family gatherings.

More than your typical buffet

Buffet restaurants often feature a plethora of Americanized Chinese food including Szechuan, Hunan, and Cantonese cuisines. The items vary from the salad, soup, appetizers and entrées featuring pork, beef, chicken, and seafood compositions. But Bamboo Garden Buffet goes beyond mere buffet offerings. There are about 180 items to serve on five buffet bars (2 hot, 3 cold). If the tasty entrées don’t excite customers, they will quickly notice that the restaurant also offers sushi, cake, pudding, pie, doughnuts, cookies, ice cream and more.  The sushi contains shrimp, eel and crab meat. There are so many options to choose from, customers will surely find something that they like.

The seafood entrées are especially popular among customers. The crab legs, Salt Pepper Shrimp, Shrimp with Garlic sauce, scallop, mussel and salmon are all best sellers.

But the General Tso’s Chicken, Chicken with Broccoli and Mongolian Beef are all popular with local customers. Each dish offers a desirable combination of healthy ingredients, good taste, and vibrant textures.  Take the Chicken with Broccoli entrée, for example. It is prepared with bite-sized bits of lightly battered chicken slices that are melded with the fresh flavors of broccoli.

For those seeking something on the healthier side, there are some steamed dishes and vegetable-focused dishes to enjoy. The chefs work hard to make sure the dishes are prepared in a healthy manner by using vegetable oils, little salt, and fresh vegetables.

The restaurant often offers seasonal items throughout the year to provide customers with welcome changes to the menu. “We are constantly updating the menu by removing unpopular dishes and creating new ones. Each month, there are some new dishes to be added, not in the menu but on the menu board. In order for a dish to be added to the menu, the chefs thoroughly test the proposed entrée first. The usual method is sampling the entrée to the customers who are kind enough to give suggestions,” explained the owner.

As a buffet restaurant, the staff knows the difficulty involving in maintaining the freshness of the dishes. All the food is displayed on the buffet bar and then replenished frequently. The dishes have to be piping hot, especially for the Chinese dishes as they have a tendency to lose their crunchy texture and beautiful color if exposed to the air for even a short period of time. To keep the dishes fresh, choosing the freshest ingredients available is of the utmost importance, Liu explains: “We have some reliable distribution companies to offer substantial stocks regularly. We carefully check if the ingredients are fresh, or we will send back and ask for replacement stocks.” The restaurant also focuses on offering smaller portions and replenishing frequently. In this way, the dishes can be changed quickly and it also ensures the customers have the freshest dishes. In addition, it is also a way to reduce waste and save cost.

The Management Excels Where Others Have Failed

Though buffet restaurants typically lack in direct customer contact, customer service can’t be overlooked. As it is a family style restaurant, the staff members know the customers in the area very well and make an effort to strengthen the friendships in the restaurant. “In our restaurant, the requirements of customers are met in any cases in a speedy manner. We are nice to customers, and try to satisfy them as much as we can. At any given time, you may see the staff shuttling around the restaurant, refilling the drinks and clearing away the full loaded plates,” explains the owner.

The staff works to clean the kitchen, dining area and restrooms every day.  The owner believes it is very important to keep a clean eatery to not only satisfy the health inspectors but also to give the customers a good first impression of the restaurant.  

The hard work of the staff has paid off, warranting from one mystery diner: “The dining area was neat and free of debris. The tables and chairs were in good condition and were ready to be occupied by diners. The buffet was clean and looked well maintained. All of the condiments on the tables were filled and wiped clean.”  

When the restaurant was first taken over by new management, the customers were reluctant to give the new owner’s the benefit of the doubt. The previous establishment had not been well received and lacked discipline. So the owner handed out flyers and did some advertising in the local newspaper but most of all, he worked on improving the quality of the food.  Gradually the restaurant achieved recognition throughout the community.

“Each restaurant has their own characteristics, and their owner customer bases. What we have to do is to convince the customers that they could get the most out of their money and it is worthwhile to dine here,” explains Mr. Liu.

About the Owner

Before Mr. Liu came to the United States, he worked as a manger in a different industry. When he landed on American soil, he had to step into the restaurant industry without much previous knowledge. The restaurant’s daily toil didn’t scare the courageous owner away, but cultivated him into becoming a strong-willed man. Having worked at many different roles in the restaurant, Mr. Liu finally stepped into the spotlight and opened a buffet restaurant, named Bamboo Garden Buffet.

The economic crisis took the world by surprise and the whole country feels the economic woe and Bamboo Garden Buffet is no exception. The cost of oil alone negatively impacted costs greatly and so the owner had to resort to new tactics to attract customers, such as giving out coupons. Thankfully, these new strategies have paid large dividends and kept the business afloat.