Yesterday I made a special trip to try the Virginia Diner. It's 90 minutes from my home. I was anticipating a good experience, and I have been wanting to go for a few years now. I do want to mention that I'm not one to leave bad reviews, I normally make the decision to not go back if I'm unhappy with my meal or service. I do understand everyone has bad days and I've taken this into consideration as well. My husband and I were so incredibly disappointed that I felt the need to leave a review. I even waited until the next day because I didn't want to do it while I was angry. When we arrived, it was obvious the employees were having a bad day. We waited a few minutes for someone to acknowledge us and the others that came in behind us. Several employees walked back and forth passed us and never said someone will be right with you or even hello they didn't even make eye contact. We felt invisible. Finally, a young lady walked up raised her head to look at me and said, "How many." The look on her face let me know she was annoyed. I said, 2 please and she asked for a name. That's it. It didn't take long to be seated, maybe 5 minutes. I didn't realize there was a buffet, until we were being seated and it seemed like most people were eating from the buffet. I should have gone with my gut and left because at this point, because I felt like it wasn't going to get any better. I went against my better judgement and my husband, and I opted for the buffet. The waitress asked what we would like to drink. When she came back with my diet pepsi, it was flat. Not a bubble in it. While I was making my plate my husband asked her to replace my pepsi with water and let her know something must be wrong with that flavor or the machine because the soda was flat. The buffet is on the small side. When we went up, there was no lettuce at the salad section of the buffet. There was banana pudding and chocolate pudding that we knew we wouldn't eat because, it was runny. There was a layer of liquid in the pans of pudding. They offered fried chicken (breasts only), beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, baked chicken, meatballs, fried fish and fried pork etc. I've had better food in hospital cafeteria. I was so disappointed. The waitress came out and gave the table next to us one biscuit for the 3 people sitting there and then left one biscuit on our table and said, I expect you will share. She didn't say they were in the process of making more and will bring them out. She said we are out. Our waitress seemed a bit off, slow and maybe a bit disoriented. My husband out of concern asked her if she was ok. She went on about her back hurting and pain meds, and we empathized with her because I've gone through the same issues and understand her pain. She was nice, but she wasn't, "present" and made sense when she said she was in pain. At this point in the meal the bad service coming into the restaurant, the overpriced mediocre food, the flat soda the runny pudding. It was enough for us to know I would never come back and instant regret for even stopping. I didn't even mention the flies yet!!! It seemed like as soon as we got our plate, an army of flies came to our table. They were sitting on our table and flying around tables next to us. My husband looked at me and said, "have you ever seen this many flies inside a restaurant?" No, I haven't. It was just too much. We didn't even have an extra napkin to cover our one biscuit sitting on the table. When we asked for the bill, we received someone else's bill and had to sit there with the flies at the table and wait until our waitress had time to bring it to us. Maybe they were having a day that nothing was going right. I don't know, but I will never go again. I don't understand the good reviews on here; I didn't see any evidence of the wonderful food, or good service others have mentioned. I feel like we paid for the image of a restaurant that used to be there a long time ago. We were even charged for the flat soda. lol. Three hours of travel and $60 later, I'm still disgusted by our experience. We were so incredibly disappointed. read more