Red Rock Buffet Review
Ah… So beautiful for its price but… Located in the West Charleston area of Las Vegas, just before Red Rock Canyon, this off-Strip buffet is one you may want to go to if you don’t mind the 15 minutes drive from the famous Las Vegas Strip (the main casino area); this because just everybody who comes to the Red Rock Buffet leaves more than satisfied, no matter what their eating preferences are. Information on their free shuttle at the bottom. Is the buffet any good?
It used to be almost exceptional but it’s lately plummeted in quality. It’s certainly still good value for money, especially during weekends when most other buffets are ridiculously expensive. Here you can eat for pocket change; at Red Rock Hotel and Casino they do try to attract you away from the Strip with a very affordable buffet which however offers a good variety of dishes and foods of good quality. The atmosphere and the décor are also tastefully put together, oozing modern yet classic beauty; you won’t feel that you are in a ‘depressing’ or ‘cheap’ place here (which you may feel at some of the other cheap Vegas options), despite it being a ‘value’ buffet. They even offer an unusually large number of highly comfortable, elegant booths. Absolutely beautiful. But what about the food?
The Food: of the budget buffets in Vegas, Red Rock is one of the very best, in the same group as Palms and, for a few dollars more, the huge and delicious Studio B (though the latter is more affordable for midweek lunch). Let’s see why:
The salad bar has a better-than-average range of lettuces, even better than Mirage and Bellagio, from delicious ready-made to make-yourself, accompanied to good dressings and, just next to it, a good variety of fresh fruit and vegetables. The quality of these fresh ingredients is good, unlike at other budget buffets, so you will not be disappointed here even if you are a ‘picky’ fresh salad-lover like us. Just to compare it with its main competitor (so to speak), if you love ready-made salads and delicious Tabbouleh in particular (to mix with your salad), Palms buffet may still be better for you. What about the rest of the food?
You will find all the main food stations: Italian, American, Sushi, Barbeque, Asian and Mexican, but rather than serving the most obvious, boring of choices only, they add something different in each station. For example, in the Italian section, besides the quintessential pasta and pizza (the latter was nothing special, as in most other buffets, by the way, except perhaps for Bellagio), the Red Rock buffet offers a delicious ‘stromboli’: delicate pizza pastry rolled almost the same way as a burrito, stuffed with spinach, mozzarella cheese and delicious deli meat; it was so delicious we kept going back.
Among the most popular dishes at this Vegas buffet are scalloped potatoes, pork roast, Japanese dumplings, grilled fish, sushi (though the sushi here is not as good as Bellagio, MGM Grand and of course Bacchanal) and some of the Mexican dishes.
Although you will not be disappointed no matter what time of the day you will visit, this Vegas buffet is particularly popular for its Sunday brunch, where you will enjoy a large variety of breakfast and lunch choices, such as eggs, bacon, sausages, pancakes, macaroni and cheese, tacos, shrimps, a good cold cut meat station where you can have freshly-prepared sandwiches made to order and, of course, a wide salad and fruit section.
We found that if you go last minute you may be disappointed by 2 things: 1) the quality of the preparation of the dishes erodes as the buffet nears its closing time; 2) they take away dishes a bit prematurely. So, our advice is not to leave it to the very last minute and give yourself at least 2 hours before closing time. This buffet unfortunately has a gap between lunch and dinner (many budget Vegas buffets do and some of the not-so-budget ones), so dishes are taken away and not replaced by dinner ones.
The desert section is also popular partly because it offers a wide selection (definitely above average) but also because some the good quality of it, in particular its home-made gelato.
The ‘Cons’: long line ups and very slow at moving people. Badly managed line ups with VIP lines and others, whilst the ‘regular’ line never seems to move.
In short: nothing fancy or gourmet, but good food, a good variety of choices and, above all, at great prices. To save even more, the ‘secret’ here is to obtain the ‘boarding pass card’ (basically the casino players’ card before you go to the buffet and then present it at the cashier).
Red Rock Buffet Hours & Prices:
from 8am to 9pm without our very beloved ‘roll-over’ (by roll-over we mean when lunch goes into dinner without any break, for example). But then, the prices are low so it is to be expected. We have videos of the Red Rock Feast buffet (see link below).
| Breakfast | Mon – Sat | 8am – 10:45am | $7.99*/$10.99 |
| Lunch | Mon – Sat | 11am – 3pm | $8.99*/11.99 |
| Dinner | Sun – Thurs | 4pm – 9pm | $13.99*/$18.99 |
| Dinner | Fri Night Seafood & Wine | 4pm – 9pm | $27.99*/$32.99 |
| Dinner | Sat Night Prime Rib/Shrimp |
4pm – 9pm | $16.99*/$21.99 |
| Brunch | Sunday | 8am – 3pm | $13.99*/$18.99 |
Children under 2 free
*With Boarding Pass Card
Free Shuttle from Red Rock to the Strip (Fashion Show Mall). Click the link to access their own timetable.