Spirit Mountain Casino - Cedar Plank Buffet

Although, technically, the Spirit Mountain Casino is quite a ways outside of Salem, it's not a long drive, many Salemites pass by it on their way to the beach, and there is even a Cherriots bus that runs out there on a weekdays. I was there myself after spending a day in wine country and a night in Willamina. There aren't too many breakfast options in the Willamina area, so we decided we'd hit the breakfast buffet at the casino.

Breakfast at the casino buffet is by far the most affordable of the buffet meals. It is only 8.95 for adults, as compared to 14.95-18.95 for dinner, depending on the night of the week. You walk in, pay at the front, and are taken to your seat by a host. Your waiter will come around and ask what you'd like to drink. All drinks are included in the buffet, except alcoholic beverages.

Then you can proceed to the buffet section...as many times as your stomach can handle! It's a large buffet with quite a few different stations. There is an omelette station which gets pretty popular, a waffle station with different toppings, a fruit station, a many, many more options.

If you love breakfast and have trouble picking just one thing off a menu, this is definitely a way to try a little of everything. The drink service can be a little slow sometimes, but usually you can flag someone down for a coffee refill if they aren't checking your cup often enough.

The buffet is busy and so the food generally seems to stay pretty fresh. We got there pretty early and things were fresh, but I noticed they put out fresh items throughout the morning as well. Below is a sampling of plates from our table.

Cedar Plank Buffet
Hours: 7am-9pm weekdays, 8am-10pm weekends
Check the website for meal times and prices as prices vary according to the meal being served


Micah said...

Delicious! I can't wait to try this one at home this weekend

Salem Man said...

For $9, no thanks. The dinner is no deal either. Have a meal in town before you go play cards. Salem has some great restaurants.

Anonymous said...

We decided to try them for lunch a month or so ago. It started off real bad when the hostess seated us in a nasty side hallway type of area. We walked over to get our plates...four out of four were dirty. That did it, we got our money back, and will not go back. BTW, we looked at the food for lunch, it was tired looking at not a great selection at all.

Anonymous said...

The casino is always so depressing. I can't imagine eating there.

There are many great restaurants to eat at here in town before you head that direction.

Rebekah said...

I certainly wouldn't make a special trip out there for it. But when you're hungover from wine tasting and there's nothing else for miles...well... :)

Or if you're an all night gambler, I guess.

Anonymous said...

Rebekah....if you are hung over there are two sure fire fixes.

1. Burger Basket - Cheeseburger, fried and large soda. The number one fix for a hangover is lots of water, but sometimes when you were drinking a lot of cheap liquor (night before) the thought of plain water sounds disgusting. The nasty holiday inn carpet growing on your tongue makes plain water taste like, well, 30 years of paid visitors. So the XL coke gives your taste buds cover. The second most valuable hangover resolutioncomponent is caffeine Hence the coke. Let's not look at advil et al, because it's bad for the liver.

- A delicious burger to soak up the bad things in your stomach after a long night drinking and smoking cheap cigarettes.

- Add fries to accomplish the same as #2, soak up the bad. Watch the salt because if you are hung over your body is more than likely going to want to store fluids (booze is a diuretic so your body responds by going the opposite direction and bloating). Nothing like paying for a hangover by storing 10 lbs of water on your stomach.

2. Walery's does pretty much the same thing. Grease, soak up, soda....If you are in Portland, the easiest in and out in Burgerville, but the burgers aren't as good as the burger basket.

Rebekah said...

Dear Anonymous 12:12 AM,
Thank you for the tips. I agree that a burger and soda or pizza and soda are the perfect hangover food. In fact, if burger or pizza joints had a "Hangover Combo Meal" I bet they'd make a killing.

On the other hand, I'd like to point out the pros of buffet breakfasts as hangover cures...

1. Plenty of carbs and greasy foods to soak up the bad stuff. And if one serving isn't enough to do the trick you can go get more.

2. Free drink refills. That whole hydration thing, ya know? In fact, at the buffet you can get Coke, orange juice, water and coffee all at once and see which one works best for covering that "well-used, 30 year old carpet" flavor in your mouth.

3. Your morning-after, it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time, I-need-food-more-than-a-shower-or-real-clothes look is likely to fit in quite well with the crowd at the casino after a night spent on the slot machines, so people won't even notice your walk of shame to the buffet table for the 3rd time.

4. Hair of the Dog. Just sayin'. Casino buffets are happy to serve you up a little something to help take the edge off, for only a small extra charge.

5. Your self-loathing for how much you drank and partied the night before will be transferred to self-loathing for eating so much your belly wants to pop, and that could be considered progress, or at least moving forward. Whatever. At least you don't have to face your alcoholism at the moment.

I think that about covers the pros. I think there's something here. A thesis possibly, on the benefits of breakfast buffets as hangover cures.

Happy eating and drinking, everyone!

Anonymous said...

HA!!!!!!! Rebekah, I raise my glass, well actually can ( of beer), to your very good response to my post (forgive the misspellings and punctuation in mine, it was on a smart phone).

I can remember day three of a Vegas trip where I woke at 2 pm face down on my hotel bed, still wearing the same "nice" clothes I had arrived in, then had probably 8 or 9 large cherry cokes at a buffet, returned three times for mashed potatoes/gravy + mac n cheese, before heading off to the spa to sweat it all out, while declaring to anyone who would listen that I "would never drink again". Eventually doing a 180 (or is it a 360 in the grand scheme of things) and heading off to meet my friends at the blackjack table and giving in to the free well bourbon on the rocks. If you paint by the numbers, I think you pretty much covered it.

Unknown said...

Salem man really?? I took three of my friends there for dinner it costed $75 and it was so amazing, better than all 30 restaurants i have be to in salem, well worth it!!! Yum yum

Unknown said...