Discovery Dining Hall - Fairbanks

I consider this a 3 star for the taste of the food and the assembly line feeling of getting people in and out, but have to admit it was very efficient in terms of serving about 900 people efficiently. I have never seen anything like it and give it a 4 for this aspect. We bought this lunch with a tour of the Discovery River boat, and they were ready for us when we disembarked. The line was long but the buffet tables were huge and drinks, salads, rolls and desserts were pre-lined up at each place setting and they brought the stew when we sat down. The downside was the stew pots were only half full when they came out, and though it was advertised as all you can eat they started running out of food at the end. They salad was absolutely the best part of the meal though. Very delicious. Again, there were 11 of us and 2 more people joined the table with us, and we were in and out quickly.

June 24, 2023 I agree with some previous comments. Service was inexperienced, summer help not observant or expert at anticipating the needs of diners (or maybe I sat at the unlucky table or were they running out of food? . I was at the end of the table, and by the time everyone served themselves from where the iron pots of stew and vegetables were placed somewhat towards the middle of the table the table, there was not enough for our end. When the salad (which was good finally got passed to our end, I took a very small portion not wanting to be greedy, but a couple of diners on my end did not get any salad. In the end, my lunch amounted to a small serving of salad, no stew, no vegetables, one roll. I took the last roll on the plate, and the family across from me got none. The only pot I saw on my end was stew which had about three servings in it and was empty by the time it was my turn. Actually, the man across from me graciously offered what would be the last serving (the dregs , but his family was already eating, and I told him to take it. I never saw a pot with the roasted vegetables. For a table of 16, there should have been a bowl of salad, a pot of stew, a pot of vegetables and double the rolls for every four diners. On my end of four people, there was nothing but water and tea. We had to ask the next four to pass the salad and stew, but of course it was mostly already all gone because it served only those four people. Theoretically, servers would bring more food, but our heads were swiveling trying to get their attention! They seemed to disappear! Very disappointing. All that being said, I have a sweet tooth, and the brownie that was already placed at every setting, one each for everyone, was delicious!

DO NOT COME HERE UNLESS YOU ARE ON A TOUR! Talk about a cheap way to rip off the folks stuck in this tourist trap. I wouldnt even come here unless it was mandatory for the tour which it pretty much is. The food sucks, the servers are inexperienced, and well it is not a place you want to be, unless its included with the tour. Picture sitting at communal dining with complete strangers. yeah that can be fun. But then picture miners stew and some kind of veggies being served in separate dutch oven-like pots. However they only supply enough food in the pots for about 3-4 people and you have 12 per table. WTH!!! This pisses me off. You then have to request additional grub from the wait staff who take about 5 minutes to get another similar portion of grub for your table. They are seriously trying to make sure they have zero food waste here and think that everyone eats like a tiny little animal not like a normal human being. Let alone the stew tastes horrible. There is very little meat in it. It is primarily a runny brown broth with some poorly cut up onions, carrots, and celery. The only good grub here is the desert. I suggest that you dont eat here because the food and service is not up to snuff. If you are here as part of a tour, eat up and press errrr beg the servers for more grub for your table.

I haven 't had a FTR in a while, so I might as well do this one. This hall is owned by the Riverboat Discovery folks, and it 's intent is to efficiently feed the up to 900 people that can offload after a captive steamboat tour. In our case, I think we only had 500 on this day, but the only way to feed that many quickly is a family style buffet and that 's what this is. For $11.95 (no taxes in Alaska, yay!, and we were spoiled after a while), you get bread rolls, apple pecan salad, beef stew, corn/potatoes, and a german chocolate brownie dessert, and we 're all out of there in under an hour. Not bad. Servers here have to have good arm muscles as the hot mains are supplied in big and heavy iron kettles. The only little setback was that the captain was enticing us about the hearty and satisfying beef stew that the hungry miners would get back in the day after working and sweating all day, and that 's what were going to be treated to. Well, the beef stew was pretty disappointing after that description as it was a watered down concoction of 95% vegetables, with 5% beef chunks. The rest of the lunch was decent and filling. Oh well, can 't really complain, as it was all bottomless, and it was a tour group lunch after all.

I 've read a couple of reviews that aren 't very flattering about this place, but my husband and I had a really nice experience here. We are newly retired and traveled Alaska as a bucket list event. Of course we did all the tourist things, one of which was the Discovery Riverboat Tour. We thought it was very well done and everyone on our tour seemed to have a wonderful day. The dining hall is owned by the riverboat tour and it feeds everyone from the tour boat in less than an hour. It 's family style dining the hot dishes were brought in heavy cast iron kettles with ladles. As soon as a table ran out of something, a hot replacement came. There was apple pecan salad, rolls, beef stew, roasted vegetables, and chocolate brownies for dessert. I read one review that said the stew had very little beef, but that wasn 't the case with our meal. Our stew had huge chunks of beef that were very hot, tender, and tasty. And we loved the roasted veggies. We thought the servers were very nice and they never stood still, they kept us in food until we 'd had enough. We were amazed they could get through such a huge crowd in such a short time. Maybe my husband and I are easily pleased, not real connoisseurs of "fine ' dining, but we both thought the stew was great, we even asked for the recipe!