Mountain Gate Family Restaurant - Waynesboro, PA and Thurmont, Maryland

The advertising of this restaurant is “When you think of buffet, think of Mountain Gate". The Mountain Gate Family Restaurant has two locations, one in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania and the other in Thurmont, Maryland. I happen to be in Maryland, but dined at the restaurant in Pennsylvania. I dined at the Mountain Gateway in Waynesboro – closer to Hagerstown, Maryland than Thurmont. The restaurant is located on Route 16 east of Rt. I81 at 10530 Buchanan Trail Road in Waynesboro, PA. In Thurmont, Maryland the restaurant is located on Route 15 at 122 Frederick Road. The name of the restaurant comes from rhe “Gateway to the Catoctin Mountains”.

This is a friendly, small family owned restaurant. Let me say immediately, as we drove into the parking lot from the road the first thing that we noticed on the changeable sign in the front of the restaurant = below the name – was a few sayings about praying for our troops and God’s love. Very nice. But understand that this was an introduction to a Christian restaurant – no problem, unless you have concern about the many crosses and little angel statues that decorate the restaurant including a larger cross and a Bible on the fireplace hearth. I have no problem with any of this – I thought that it was very nice. The rooms were all bright and pleasant. Nice décor. Don’t stop reading – there is a lot of reason to come here. Read on.

That said; let’s get on to the restaurant and the food. In one word, excellent. Good price, good value, good food. We went on a Saturday night. There are buffets every night. The food was a mix of Pennsylvania German and American home cooking. The Saturday night price is $11.95 per adult. The price is the same Friday and Sunday. Weekend hours are until 9. There are also lunch and breakfast buffets. Lunch buffet during the week is $6.50 until 3:30pm. Breakfast buffet is $5.50 weekdays (until 11am) and $6.25, Saturday and Sunday (until Noon). Dinner buffets Monday to Thursday are $8.99. Good prices. There are children’s prices. You can also order from a menu. You pay after you dine. Tips are not included. Service is good. Leave a good tip. Beverages are included and brought to you by your waitress.

There are booths and tables. The room that we were in was the banquet room and the tables were folding tables, a little unusual but more than adequate and comfortable. There were two dining areas with booths and there was another dining room at the opposite side of the restaurant. The buffet was in its own room situated in the center of the restaurant. Your silverware and napkins are on the table. You are seated and asked if you would like a menu or are selecting the buffet. Your waitress comes and takes your soft drink order. You are then on your own to go and get whatever you like.

You may start with a choice of two soups. There was vegetable and a crab vegetable. We tried them both and they were very good. I enjoyed the crab soup – real crab meat and good crab taste. Adjacent to the soup was home baked breads – a wide assortment.

There is a salad bar that fills a wall of the buffet room. There are two types of lettuce. There is every topping that you can think of and there is an assortment of prepared salads. I made a Caesar salad. You could have made any type of salad. You could skip the greens and enjoyed the prepared salads.

In the center of the buffet room is a double sided long buffet of entrees and vegetables. They claim to have seven vegetables. They do - there was string beans and ham (a local dish), corn, beats, peas, mashed potatoes, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, etc. There were several hot entrees here including fried chicken and what they call slippery pot pie which is actually PA Dutch Chicken Bot Bie = fresh dumpling noodles, chicken, carrots, and potatoes in a thick chicken stock sauce. There was also pork and sauerkraut. All in all, \plenty and kept properly hot and moist. There was also a carving station with THREE meats carved to your order - baked ham, turkey, and roast beef. There was beef and turkey gravy, cranberry sauce, and bread stuffing. There were also corn fritters, This was all home style food, simple and well prepared.

The highlight of this restaurant was the BEST dessert bar that I have ever seen The desserts were laid out on a large double sided buffet server that filled the side of the room. There were also more desserts filling the side wall. Think of a pie and it was there. There were also four sugar free pies. There was a variety of cakes. There were puddings. There was fruit. To top it all off there were 16 flavors of ice cream from a local dairy. Your waitress brought the ice cream to your table. All is fresh baked. I have been to a lot of buffet restaurants and many, many catering hall banquets; I have never seen as large a dessert offering as this. There were pies and cakes that I have never seen before. Three was Reeses pie. There was egg custard pie. There was pumpkin pie in April. They went on and on. For this reason alone this restaurant is an experience not to be missed. While you can order the soup and salad bar on its own, it does not appear that you can order the dessert bar alone –but the dessert bar is worth the price of the buffet.

Service was excellent. It was personal and consistent. The waitress came by many times to make sure that we had all that we needed. She refilled the drinks without our asking. She cleared the dishes as soon as we were through,

Getting to this restaurant seems like it goes on forever, but it is worth the trip. Once off I81 we drove through the town of Waynesboro and seemed to drive forever – actually it is only about 7 miles from I81 – and along the way we picked up the cheapest gas to be found within a hundred miles - $2.89 at a Sheetz station – almost ten cents less a gallon than other stations. This may not be the place for this information, but it the subject of conversation everywhere you go.

Anyway – if you are in northwestern Maryland or south – very central PA go to the Mountain Gate Family Restaurant. I am sure both locations are equally good. There is no website but the phone numbers are Waynesboro 717-765-6772 and Thurmont 301-271-4373. Hours in Thurmont are from 5 am to 10:30 pm, Sunday to Thursday and 5 am – 11 pm, Friday and Saturday. The hours in Waynesboro are 5 am to 10 pm every day.