A staple as far as eating out when we visit OC but the Bonfire needs help as I've seen it diminish over the last 5-years. Overpriced at $50/pp the food quality has gone down & they no longer offer the King Crab Legs as part of the general menu (can order a la carte for addtl fees). They still do have a nice wide variety of food options & the staff is very involved. Clearly busy scurrying around the place. The "bearded meat guy"'At the carving station is a miserable fk who seems annoyed to do his job (not happy bud, then quit). Anyways, our family has enjoyed the Bonfire over the years (been coming to OC since 1985) but I fear this place may not make it into the future if they don't improve things. read more

This place is so gross. I read the reviews and some of the newer ones didn't seem so bad, and since everyone wanted different things, an AYCE buffet seemed like the best option, so we went. As far as service goes, everyone was pleasant. I put several tiny portions on my plate to see what was good - fried shrimp/oysters, hush puppies, a roll, clams, mussels, slider, sausage, prime rib, 2 rib drums. All the fried stuff was too much breading - the oysters did not taste right - I suspect they were old, and the clam and mussels too. The slider was not good either and the roll was stale. They don't even bother to separate it from the box it likely came in. The meat options such as sausage, ribs, and prime rib were the best options I had, though we're not talking steak house level. So the desserts- the homemade peach cobbler was nasty. I only ate the coffee cake slice completely - even the ice cream wasn't right, maybe watered down? The one star is for the service, which was pleasant, and they seemed to clean up well after patrons left. Even with the cheaper options for kids and under 5 being free, it still ended up being extremely overpriced. In the end it was a total bust and we would never eat there again. read more

The bonfire is a place where you can get pretty dang good food, but the service was not the best, and the environment was kind of just off for a beach. The food was okay. I liked three things while I was there. Overall, some of the food was just not that great, but the service was still not the best, and they kind of just mean. The place was not really dirty, but just kind of not the cleanest. read more

My in-laws wanted to eat here....I knew immediately this place cannot be good. Buffet costs $47 per adult, not including crab legs. Prime rib is tasteless. The seafood choices were baked salmon, mussels, clams, crawfish, and shrimp. None of them were really good. I ate less at this buffet than I normally do at a regular restaurant because the food quality is so low, I just lost appetite...and at that point, I was hoping not to get sick. Honestly I would just skip the buffet and order the 3lb crab leg for $50....that was the only thing worth the money at this place. read more

I don't know why they are open Food has taste and warm not hot No crab legs no crab at all you have to pay separate Salad os not good Deserts is not good Bathroom is not clean no soap and smells I will never go back ever again not even if it's free read more

Our waitress was great. Very attentive and nice. I wish I remembered her name to give her a shout out. Food was mid at best. Whoever is running the meat station needs to be evaluated. 1. The London broil was covered in silver skin. It was so over salted it tasted like it was soaked in saltwater than covered in table salt when brought out. This was my favorite item last year. Must have had 4 servings. This year couldn't finish 1/4 of one serving. 2. Prime rib had zero crust on the edges. Way too rare. You can get it thrown in the flat top for a quick touch up though so that made it better. It just had no flavor without the fixings. 3.Pulled pork and beef was just straight squishy fat soaked in grease. 4. Some how the brisket was both dry and greasy fat at the same time. Plus the slicer was cutting square and triangle chunks off to serve. Then seemed weirded out when I asked for thinly sliced. We had a completely opposite experience this same time last year. Not sure if cooks and/ management have changed but the experience wasn't the same. Felt more like a country buffet this time around. I wish I had taken pictures but spent half my time with greasy hands. read more

​I recently visited Bonfire Restaurant, and unfortunately, it was a major disappointment. The food quality was poor for the high price point, and the seating layout felt awkward and poorly designed. ​Our total bill came to $160 for two people. The crab legs weren't included in the unlimited buffet, so we had to purchase them separately, and they were just mediocre--definitely not worth the extra cost or the total price tag. ​The only bright spot was the service. Our server was attentive, friendly, and made sure we had everything we needed. She did a great job, but excellent service couldn't save the overpriced, subpar food. I won't be returning and recommend staying away. read more

Came here during our visit to the beach and it's nice. It's right near the beach side , you don't have to leave and cross the bridge to get to it and has plenty of parking. The service is amazing and all the staff are super nice! We got the buffet and the best thing was the prime rib and bbq beef. There's also a selection of seafood, which I would have thought would be fresh being right near the beach but it was not. The crawfish taste frozen and there were also mussels and clams that were ok. The corn was good. The highlight I must say, are the HOMEMADE DONUTS!!!! It was sooooo soooo good and they literally make it right there fresh in front of you. Pair that with some ice cream... SO GOOD!!! For the price, the food you get is not the best (unless you have a love for freshly made donuts) but considering the location and service it is decent if you're looking to fill hungry stomachs after a day at the beach. read more

The waitress was pleasant. It's the only good thing I can say. The food looked and tasted like it had been sitting but the restaurant was busy. Food didn't fresh at all. I noticed something sticky on my arm is was chocolate something that hadn't been cleaned. It's been 40 years since I've been here and won't be back. Save your money. McDonald's taste better than this. read more

We were so looking forward to lots of delicious seafood. Our disappointment came with the peel & eat shrimp that you could not remove the shell. Then came the very bland soups. Boy King crab & lobster bisque were tasteless & watery. Oyster were tough & so was the sirloin . So onward to the fish. Fried was ok. Sword fish & salmon was very good. Ahi tuna was good but if it was light pink it was tough to chew. Dark pink tuna was really good. Clams & mussels were heh. Fried clams over cooked. Butterfly fried shrimp were good. Waitress did not know what horse radish was We over heard others not happy with the soups & sirloin. Dessert bar was basically like any other buffet. Nothing special. Was it worth the price ??? Not really for us. I was happy my beer was only $3.00one never knows until they experienced it themselves. read more

The service was great. The collected the plates quickly and refilled the drinks as soon as I needed. Everyone was very nice and helpful. The ambiance is consistent with a typical buffet restaurant. The place was clean and the food kept being replenished. The downside was the prime rib and London broil was either too chewy or bland. I did like the clams, mussels, and oysters which were fresh. I would go back but the cost of the buffet which did not include the snow crab legs would make be think a little harder about the dinner visit. I would most likely go for the lunch instead to get more bang for the buck. read more

You never expect that an all you can eat buffet would serve the high quality of food you will find at The Bonfire. The fresh & fried oysters are so delicious. The shrimp are very large and steamed perfectly. The prime rib is juicy and flavorful. When I say EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL, please believe me. And if it's not, just speak with the very conscientious manager. He'll make it right! BON APPETIT! :-) read more

The pictures were taken during this past summer. This was my family's first time eating at this buffet. Although, we were stuffed, we didn't had many expectations with the place since it was quite overpriced. The place over all was a bit chaotic and decent. Some of the food was good and filling. However, it makes sense since it is the only buffet in the Ocean City area, that it's not the best food place in the city. I would not go there again since there are better buffets anywhere, but if I'm really craving a buffet near me, I'll just visit there again as the only option. read more

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We went for Thanksgiving and the food was as you expect. Not much flavor and cold. Had a decent variety of food for the price. The bartender was super rude. I went up to order a drink and he told me he was busy, then I was like no problem i'll come back he said it was fine and made my drink. There was no one at the bar and he had no tables. I'm not sure why he felt the need to be rude. Probably won't return, very un coordinated staff. We made a reservation and still waited 30 mins. I understand things are busy but what was the point of a reservation. read more

The best buffet I've ever been to. Clean, fresh food. Very friendly and respectful staff. Clean place and fresh, healthy food. I highly recommend it. You should definitely go here. I'd be willing to drive 3 hours just to go here and eat the food there again. read more

The seafood selection is very limited. They used to have Mahi Mahi and rockfish but majority of the food was American country food. In 2020, when covid hit, they discontinued crab legs and started charging $20 a pound for it..ridiculous! NEED to have steam clams, blue crabs, flounder, Mahi Mahi, rockfish,crawfish, etc. Last time I'm eating here. read more

I wouldn't recommend this over priced tourist trap dump to my worst enemy. Food was awful, but not half as bad as the manager. Cowboy ribeye was saltier than the sea next door. Manager only offered to take half off and had a tough crap attitude, not caring about the patron nor the quality of what was served. I should have just went to Wawa. read more

I know this places "ambiance" is outdated, for sure lol buttttt it's our absolute favorite place to eat when we come to Ocean City. The food is always fresh and delicious & even though they had to increase their pricing after Covid, I still think it's fairly reasonable for the amount that you get! My favorite thing on earth is their beautiful 3 pound plate of fresh Maryland crab legs. My family & I have been coming here for over 25 years & we will never stop coming to the Bonfire read more

The Bonfire Restaurant - Crablegs! - Buffets Near Me - Ocean City, Maryland

After Embers discontinued All You Can Eat (AYCE), Bonfire is the last bona fide seafood AYCE in OC. The good: Everything was hot and I enjoyed most of the meal. The service was good and I tipped a full 20%. Yes they charge for snow crab legs which is expected due to the price and demand. They had a great special, $46 for 3 lbs not including the buffet, which is much lower than most of OC at $20-$27 per lb. If you have 3-5 people to share this is a deal! They should have advertised this online because people would flock there. The bad: Someone raided the soups and dug out every tiny bit of crab meat. I am not kidding. Either these were purees to begin with or they were slop after that person was done with them. There is a security guard for some reason who kept an eye on us in the line. The "brisket" was decent and the prime rib was fatty but OK. If serving brisket they need more BBQ, with types labeled. They ran out of ketchup near the fries and hush puppies. I told the employee and one hour later when I left, it was still empty. The ugly: The glasses were not clean and had a greasy residue (see picture). Does this represent the rest of the cleanliness of the kitchen? The bathrooms. Someone had C-diff and there's very little ventilation. If you have ever smelled it in a hospital, you know what it is and it sticks with you for days later. I tried both family bathrooms plus the men's room, all 3 had the putrid smell. There were no paper towels, only a hand dryer. Overall, try it for the experience but the owners need to put more pride into a 50+ year family business! read more

The Bonfire Restaurant - Greasy residue in my soda. - Buffets Near Me - Ocean City, Maryland

Visited the Bonfire Restaurant while in OCMD over the summer. We were looking for a good buffet spot similar to Philipp's Seafood that we had visited years before. Be warned, there will be a wait during the summer so I highly recommend making a reservation bc we were seated immediately. Good variety of hot foods, seafood, and dessert. Literally there is something for everyone and very family friendly! I loved the fresh donuts-- I literally went back for seconds! Must visit if you are looking for an all you can eat restaurant. read more

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Walked in and could not help but smell the goodness. Hundreds of items to pick from. If you like crab legs they were additional $15 lbs which I'm not a fan of but many did. Plan to pay approximately $45 person but well worth it..... read more

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great place to eat ,, food excellent,, staffs great when i come this place.... tell your family and friends read more

This place is a joke! Absolutely not one thing there I found edible. Even my children who would normally eat anything were disgusted and so turned off they didn't even wanna finish their first plate. read more

Overpriced,ambiance needs remodeling. Some food cold.some food was excellent. A man walking around that limped ,maybe owner or manager seemed to have an additude.Left feeling I paid to much and won't return.Whoever runs the show here needs to walk around and do his job. read more

The Bonfire use to be the bomb when they had all you can eat crab legs, now it is like a golden corral. I would pay $100 for all you can eat crab legs. Now we just order from billies subs. read more

Amazing experience at the Bonfire. We arrived at 3:00pm for the early bird dinner hour. We were seated immediately. We ordered the buffet. We didn't order the extra snow crab. Every thing we tried on the buffet was yummy. All food items were hot. So many selections. Restaurant was busy, but not loud. We could easily carry on a conversation. Lauren was our server and she was great. Highly recommend. read more

Despite the recent negative reviews for this place on Yelp, my family decided to check it out. We arrived around 5pm and had a 5 minute wait. There were already a decent number of tables seated, but when we left at 7, every table was full and the wait was out the door! (So definitely recommend going earlier). The food was nothing like the negative reviews! They had tons of seafood and non-seafood options. The drinks were $5-10 and pretty good too. A few favorites were their crabs, ribs, and bread pudding. Great place for any size group and def recommend this place. My friend and I agreed that this place is better than Gentleman Jim's :) read more

The food was amazing, the service was great, and the environment was clean and chill.

Hundreds of food items to choose from, the prime rib, salmon, fried shrimp, mashed potatoes and London broil were amazing. Highly recommend making reservations first as it does get very crowded read more

We were looking for a good seafood dinner in Ocean City that does not cost an arm and a leg. We decided to try Bonfire. This place should be turned into a bonfire!! I bet it was a nice place 20 years ago. It is rundown and outdated. The food is mostly breaded, had been sitting and barely over warm. A buffet yes what you would expect back in 1990. These days with these prices you would expect multiple buffet tables with all the fixens. They have one main buffet table and a couple other small ones to possibly make up a second table. My wife doesn't eat much, so when she asked about the entrees they advertised the waitress said, "we have 3 and the cheapest is $28.00 and that is just fried shrimp and French fries. The buffet is $36.99, which we just lowered from $55.00. So, most people just order the buffet. What would you like to do?" The decor: OMG! The tables themselves are ok but that is all it has going for it. The place doesn't know what it is. Is it a sports bar (playing on tvs) An ocean theme (glass dividers)? A hilly country theme (scene in the back side of restaurant, waste of space) ? Then our bill came. Family of 5 for this tasteless, blah diner that I could have gotten at any local diner cost us $230. When stopping in the restroom before leaving I was so happy to see that the whole restaurant circuit breaker system was on the wall open so anyone could just flip everything off. Not even a lock on it. Don't go here! A waste of your hard earned money. read more

The Bonfire Restaurant - Buffets Near Me - Ocean City, Maryland

Hard to recommend this place. $46 per adult for a buffet. Ok, maybe if thst includes a drink. It doesn't? Another $4, so $50 per person. Well, at least they have crab legs. Oh, they used to but now it's an extra $20/lb. Gotcha! If the food is good, maybe the high price is worth it. Brisket: too salty. I smoke meat for fun. I've never tasted bad brisket until bonfire. Pulled pork: more water than anything. Super blnd (which is how I'd describe most of the food here) Prime rib- over half my piece was inedible fat. They dunk it in watered down au jus and hope for the best. It was decent, not great. Plus, they should have some you can take back to your seat to enjoy. Meatballs- gag. They looked better than they tasted. The hush puppies were good, but those are hard to screw up being deep fried. Doughnuts were delicious and the ice cream hit the spot. Final rundown: high priced buffet with mediocre food and several attempts at upcharging. Ok to go once I guess if you're in a pinch, but no way would I recommend going here if yoy had ANY other choice. read more

It's buffet food. OK but nothing spectacular. Had to wait longer than expected to get the check. The "limited" menu is just that, very limited. Prices were only slightly less than full buffet cost. read more

Lots of food- It's a buffet after all. And the one thing they have a lot of is shrimp. Crab legs are extra. Did see some prime rib and it was tasty. read more

Food terrible. Felt like I was going to die after eating. Staff was nice and friendly. But the food was god awful. And for the price I thought it would be pretty decent. Meat was bland. And no taste. Food taste super old, this bring dollar general meat to a way better level after eating here. I've had hotdogs that taste better then there brisket. At this point it's road kill on the way home for dinner. I wouldn't let my neighbors dog eat here. And he shits in my lawn. The hush puppies tasted like cat turds. But my cat turds are bigger than the hush puppies. If ray charles was here he would definitely think we were eating out of a cow pasture. I've never had cow patties but I bet it's pretty comparable. The soup was watered down. Tasted like formaldehyde and cat liter. But the mashed potatoes were decent. read more

We went last night for dinner. We haven't been there in 30 years and the quality of the buffet has gone downhill immensely. It was not worth the price of 45.99 pp. read more

Food was fair at best. Nothing was good. All the seafood tasted the same. Bland Wife tried a little of everything else and stated not a place I want to come back to. read more

Very false advertisement is not all that great. You don't get snow crab with the it be extra more money by the pound. The server was very slow and I had to wait very long time for refill and my bills. read more

Nothing particularly bad happened to us while dining at this restaurant, but we still couldn't give any more than 1-2 stars because it's simply not worth it. They have a huge southern style buffet that unfortunately has a lot of low quality food. Lots of the things we ate tasted old, full of oil, or just tasted bad. Considering the price is almost $43 per person, it's not worth it at all! If you want snow crabs you have to order them on the side for an extra $17 per pound. The snow crabs were good, their baked beans tasted good, but none of the rest was good. The service was very good. We were seated promptly and people were always coming around asking if we needed anything or collecting plates. read more

Decent. $42 per adult and kids $20 ages 7-12. However, drinks aren't even included with the kids price. So $25 for my child was pricey when you consider the amount of food she ate. I thought the selection was good and I don't really eat seafood. The corn nibblets were phenomenal and I went up for seconds. My husband compared it to a "mid 90s buffet" which is a compliment. He enjoyed the prime rib. My only gripe was I ordered a frozen drink. Waitress came back 4 times to tell me that my drink was coming but the bar was slow because two bartenders called out. Finally at the end of our meal, she came back again and asked me if I wanted to take my drink off the bill. Um, yes? I never got it?! I would have appreciated her asking me if I wanted something different in the 45 minutes we were there instead of telling me over and over again that it would just be a few more minutes. read more

This was our second time at Bonfire and I was instantly reminded of how much I enjoy it. The food is so good and there is a ton to choose from. Due to pricing, the AYCE crab legs are no longer part of the buffet, which is understandable. What I don't love is that you can only order them in ADDITION to the buffet. Honestly, it takes me so long to eat crab legs (I only got the 1 lb) that I enjoyed a salad and a piece of prime rib only. I was too full and too busy eating to enjoy the rest of the buffet. I would have gladly paid for the crab legs and a salad, but it wasn't a good value for me because I did not eat $41 worth of buffet. That said, we had visited back in 2018 and I fully enjoyed the buffet. Everything is so delicous and theres something for everyone. Service was wonderful. read more