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| - They have been open for a couple of years, but we only recently have begun eating there thanks to an exchange student staying with us who is addicted to the buffet. Station 6 pizza is part of a three restaurant mini-chain. with outlets in Bloomington and Peoria; the others are called "Fire Station Pizza." This one is Station 6 so as not to be confused with other places in town with the fire station or fire house name.
We've only been there for the buffet lunch, so that is all I will discuss in this review. When you enter the restaurant you walk up to the counter and pay for the buffet. The space has large windows on two sides, allowing plenty of light. It is not large, but it seems almost cavernous because of the high (20 foot) ceiling. Above the windows are an array of fire station memorabilia- shirts, hoses, hats, pictures, axes, etc. Other than that, the only real decoration is a huge fire truck mural on the west wall. The south wall is taken up by the register, the buffet, and the soda fountain. The buffet is entirely self-serve.
There is a nice salad bar. It is small in terms of selection, maybe 30 items, but it is very good. Unlike the big-chain competition with a pizza buffet lunch, the salad ingredients here are very fresh. Nothing in the salad bar has that chemical taste that bagged lettuce (etc) is so famous for having. The ingredients are fresh, and the "bins" kept filled. We like it, but, as I noted, the selection is basic. The only dressing I have tried is the bleu cheese dressing. It is really superior. Big chunks of bleu cheese throughout, and it tastes as if it is made in house; with those big chunks of cheese, it would never make its way out of a bottle! Their web site claims that everything is fresh, prepared in house, with no preservatives, etc. And the salad bar seems to confirm it.
Our only salad bar complaint, other than the small selection, may be that everything is sliced really small. I mean pico de gallo small. Everything except the fresh spinach leaves, anyway. The carrots are sliced like match sticks, the cucumbers, peppers, onions, and even hard-boiled eggs are a small dice. Nothing really wrong with this, but it can make the salad a bit difficult to eat with a fork. No "forking" the pepper slices here; you just use the fork like a mini-shovel, so it can be messy. Twice we've gone home with at least one of us needing to change shirts due to a messy salad shirt/blouse spill.
The pizza buffet itself is the main attraction for most people. It is kept pretty full of pizzas, most with one or two toppings, but you might find the occasional "lovers" pizza there too. They are a mix of thin crust and medium crust pizzas, and there usually is a desert pizza on the counter as well as breadsticks. I've not tried desert pizzas, but the other pizzas are quite good. One of the better choices in a town filled with decent pizza joints. Even pizzas of which I was skeptical turned out to be pretty good. While not my favorite, a dill pickle, Canadian bacon, olive, and onion pizza was much better than it sounded. They have a really tasty four cheese, thin crust pizza that has a nice crispy crust with cheeses that don't completely meld into a single flavor. I like that you can taste all of them. Our exchange student likes the vegetarian pizzas a lot. She likes this restaurant a lot, with one caveat: While each table has at least two hot-sauces and Peperoncino, a shaker of Parmesan cannot be found in the restaurant. Even so, she says this place is much preferred to the hut, which has parmesan but inferior pizza and salad.
The staff is attentive, always asking if everything is good, if they can take your empty dishes, etc. Obviously, during buffet hours, they don't take orders or bring you any food.
There is both table and booth seating. We always take a table, primarily because every booth has a small flat-screen TV (that you can control), and meals, for us, are one of the few times we actually have good conversations. But, if you are bringing kids without another adult, or are there alone, or simply are with people to whom you would rather not speak, I can see the appeal of the TV's.
The staff behind the counter, at least during buffet hours, also is helpful if you ask. Sometimes if there is a vacant pizza spot them to make whatever kind you would like put out. It doesn't have to be a "standard menu" pizza, so go ahead and ask. I guess they might refuse if you ask for something too weird; I don't imagine they'd make a chocolate and pickle pizza, for example, but they made a really good spinach, roast garlic, ham, and feta pizza when we asked. (It was delicious!)
So, all in all their buffet gets high marks. Perhaps we'll go for their sandwiches, pastas, calzones, etc., sometime and I'll make this more comprehensive. Until then this is our go-to pizza buffet in CU.
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