Garden Terrace Buffet

1927 Boardwalk
Atlantic City, NJ

Directions: If you wanna get there, take the Garden State Parkway down to Atlantic City. But honestly, don't.

This past weekend, Elephant Larry did something very nice and fun: we went to the circus. We went to the circus because our friend/tech-gal Marni used to be in the circus, which is freaking awesome. We wanted to go while they were playing in New York, but couldn’t quite work that out. So instead we threw Marni, our friend/costume designer Mary and our/my little brother Pat-Pat in a minivan and drove down to Atlantic City!

We really, really had a lot of fun. The circus was breath-taking and hilarious and glitzy. Atlantic City, though ridiculous, was ridiculous in a fun, garish kind of way. We gambled low amounts of money, we partook of salt-water taffy. Our senses were overloaded in all the best possible ways. To cap the evening, we walked along the beach during sunset, with a chilly, misty fog wrapped around us the whole time. It was really great.

In the middle of all this good, we ate at this dismal hell-hole.

You see the sign. You see how old, and decrepit it looks. Well, right next to it was a weird escalator with mirrors all around it that was not only tacky, but cheap and dirty as well. This was all I needed. I didn’t even want anyone to check it out and report back, but they did. They beckoned us to come up the bizarre outdoor escalator and eat there, for some reason. I won’t specifically tell you who did this, because I don’t want to incriminate Chris and Stefan.

I can’t even begin to describe how awful this place was. I don’t know why we went there. After paying the appropriately low price, we passed through a turnstile. As if this was some sort of fun Atlantic City cheap-ass buffet ride we were taking part in. It wasn’t. It was miserable. Its faded maroon décor, bubble-fonted signs and dusty neon brought to mind the concession areas of an abandoned late Seventies bowling alley. Or roller skating rink. But bigger, and with the intention of being a restaurant. And more cafeteria like. What the fucking hell.

I knew it was over before I even sat down. I volunteered to be the guy who sits with all our stuff while everyone else got food at the buffet. I checked my cell phone messages and talked with my sister on the phone. It was then I realized that since she was vacationing in Orlando at the time, there were Haggerty’s present in the two tackiest cities on the East Coast. This realization was the highlight of my time at the Garden Terrace Buffet.

It was my turn to get food, but I already knew what to expect. I grabbed a Styrofoam plate and went to work. Unsurprisingly, the food was almost universally an abomination. There were thick slabs of turkey, swimming in a skinned-over urine-colored gravy. There was dry, cracked ham. Something light-colored had what seemed like actual dirt on it. Maybe it was ash from it being cooked, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was dirt.

The mashed potatoes were clearly instant. If they weren’t, that’s just worse. The salad fixings consisted of yellowing chunks of wilted lettuce, GIANT TOMATO WEDGES grossly bleeding their insides all over each other, and hilariously, some cheese. Like I’m going to touch any of that nasty, nasty cheese. Each salad dressing contained generous dollops of other types of salad dressing. Normally that’d be a nitpick, but I think that fact contributes to the overall matrix of awful going down at this pit.

And I swear, I swear I am not exaggerating this for comic effect: I could not identify the black beans at first. They were sitting in a thick, black bubbling liquid that looked for the life of me like tar. The tin bin was all the way at the end, so I assumed it was some sort of cleaning substance (which wasn’t a very good assumption at this place). I finally looked close enough and saw that it was black beans. I was relieved and horrified.

In the end, I picked the three least offensive looking things: ziti with sauce, fried chicken, bread. I will review each, briefly.

Chicken: Overcooked and rubbery. The inside gleamed a bright red. I only took two bites.

Ziti: Overcooked and soggy. Sauce tasted like Chef Boyardee + water. One bite.

Bread: Clearly pre-packaged rolls. I ate four of these.

By this point it was dessert time. I eschewed the snot-looking white pudding and gross piles of pie for a good ol’ dish of soft-serve ice cream. Again, this was fine through no fault of the good people at the Garden Terrace Buffet. It was pre-prepared. They can’t ruin everything. The toppings, though, they can ruin. I think the butterscotch was a solid mass sticking to the sides of the bin. The chocolate sprinkles seemed fine, though I heard a review from further down the table that they were a little bland and waxy. This might not be the establishment’s fault, but I’m willing to give them the detriment of the doubt.

Folks, I am not a picky man. When I get hungry, I eat. But there was even something wrong with the water here. The WATER was DUSTY. In honor of the amount of time I spent actually masticating food they prepared, I will give the Garden Terrace Buffet 3 bites. A three out of one million.

- Geoff Haggerty