Providence Place

The food is good, comfort type food with something for everyone, even frog’s legs. The atmosphere is also pleasant.

But the service is a disaster. They have you pay before you are seated. Well, you soon find out why. After your drink order is placed, you never see them again. You will die of thirst before they get you your beverage. Refills- hope for a lot of ice so you can suck on it through the rest of your meal.

The set up is a huge buffet with many stations. Each time you go up, you are to use a clean plate. Good luck with the dirty ones. We had a large party of 12 people with no one clearing away the dirty dishes. After one family left the restaurant, we started using their empty table for our dirty dishes. Everyone was having the same problem. Soon you had this leaning tower of dirty earthenware with scrapes of food and sticky utensils. Yuck! Mentioning utensils, because they were not clearing away the used items, they started to run out of soup spoons and forks. The chefs, not the serving staff, would see you waiting for something and they would get you your flatware. It was a shame because the food is better then good, but the unappetizing surroundings could turn your stomach.

Also, they run a petting zoo for the sweet little children before, during, and after the service. How cute. Little Suzie was out petting the lamb before she came in and handled 17 rolls picking the one she wanted. Do you think she washed her hands?

We had been to Collegeville INN in the past and had good experiences. But Thanksgiving of 2007 put an end to it. On top of all the above, we had reservations for 12:30 and were seated at 1:45. We were ready to head to a local diner when our name was finally called. I really wish we had.