A little over a year ago, a fire caused extensive damage to Sweet Basil, forcing them to close down. A year later, they have finished their remodeled building and opened back up.
For over a decade, Sweet Basil has been a common lunch destination for my group of lunch friends. The number of times I’ve stopped by for the lunch buffet and then go back to work in desperate need of a nap of too numerous to track. We’ve missed having Sweet Basil around and anxiously looked forward to the return.
When they re-opened, I planned to go check it out with friends. I even called in anticipation to see if they accepted reservations because their lunch buffets were always busy and I expected it to be busier than usual. I was told no on the reservations.
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| The New Insides! |
To back track a little, Sweet Basil is located at 2424 N Woodlawn Blvd #111 which is between 21st and 29th street. They are open for their lunch buffet from 11 am – 2 pm and then reopen for dinner from 4:30 – 9 pm. Those times are good all seven days of the week according to Google.
The new insides is very open and brighter. There’s a TV inside; no longer do I feel a little depressed sitting inside a gloomy building. The capacity of the place looks to be similar. Overall, we really liked what they’ve done with the new place.
I’ve only gone here probably 2-3 times for dinner in my history of eating there. The buffet is a totally different story though.
When we arrived for lunch, I was quoted at a 25-30 minute wait time. I debated coming back another time but decided to stay. While we were waiting, we noticed people who came in after us were getting seated. After a quick little inquiry, it looks as though some people were able to make reservations. I was told that they are training to train new staff members that reservations are not allowed. So some people who called in to make reservations were allowed to do so because the people they spoke to allowed it to happen. This was a little upsetting and could have easily saved a good 30 minute wait; time that could have been spent better elsewhere.
Once we were finally seated, we hopped immediately in line as the buffet station is not that big so it can be a little slow depending on who else is in line with you. There’s always that one or two people who takes a year to decide what they want to eat in a buffet line. Ughhhh.
The buffet line is pretty simple. It starts off with salad and fruit. Then you have you choices of bread, veggies, rice, lasagna, chicken, noodles, fried fish or wings, and baked chicken. Between the four of us who went, we probably tried it all.
The food tasted the same; the familiar goodness we’ve come to grow and love through the years at Sweet Basil. Of the four of us, there was one Sweet Basil newbie in our group who’s a picky eater and even he was pleased with his lunch there. I’m a big fan of the noodles, rice and teriyaki chicken there. Other favorites by the rest of the group included the lasagna which went by quick in the buffet line.
Afterwards they have a small station of desserts but by that point none of us had room. Refills for our pop and water were delivered in a quick manner. All of the servers were extremely nice. Outside of the long wait and the whole confusion on the reservations for lunch, it was a winner of a buffet. I really think it is the best lunch buffet in town. I’ll be interested to see how their policy on reservations for lunches goes moving forward because it is VERY BUSY during lunch time there.
Between the four of us, it was $50 for the lunch buffets and drinks; an exceptional value if you eat a lot like we did.
Of course when I got back to work, I was in desperate need of a nap.
Happy Dining All.
