Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet: Best in Rhode Island? A Review

A review of Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet in Rhode Island, including the sushi, hibachi, desserts, prices, service, and overall dining experience.

Review

This review is for the East Providence location and was visited on June 12, 2026, and in previous years.

Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet has two locations in Rhode Island, one in East Providence’s Rumford and the other in Warwick. They appear to be the same business, as suggested by their logo, and similar hours and prices, though the overall experience may differ. Their websites (East Providence and Warwick) are also similar, with minor variations in website layout and claims about the size of their food selection (150 vs. 200, respectively).

The buffet prices are fairly low, some of the cheapest buffets in Rhode Island, and rival similar Chinese-American buffets such as Royal Buffet. Further, they offer coupons and discounts on their websites. And lastly, on weekends, both locations close later and charge a small upcharge due to the addition of seafood at the East Providence location and crab at Warwick, according to employees.

Given the low buffet price, how does their food and overall experience compare with their competitors?

First, Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet offers your traditional Chinese-American Buffet fare. It has a salad station, a sushi bar, a hibachi area, desserts, and rows of Asian- and American-based foods. Unfortunately, despite being typical, the size isn’t.

Maybe the websites didn’t lie about the amount they offer vs. the Warwick location (150 vs. 200) because, at least here in East Providence, the buffet was smaller than average. In fact, the only “normal” offering they had was the sushi and hibachi bars. For example, hot foods like American fare were mostly limited to chicken nuggets, fries, and pizza, and Chinese-American dishes were generally smaller in selection—where were the varieties of rice, meats, etc.? Sure, there were some of the foods of everything I mentioned, but it felt limiting at times. Lastly, the overall quality was fine and appropriate, likely because they had to keep up with the customers, though several caveats are noted later in the review.

To start, as a seafood connoisseur, the selection was pretty good overall. Some select varieties were missing, including different types of calamari and a few others—that’s mostly nitpicking, though. They had tasty cheesy crab rangoons, different hot and cold shellfish and shrimp, imitation crab, crawfish, and semi-rare, baby, tasty whole baby octopus. But wait, didn’t an employee tell us before that they charge more on the weekend because they offer seafood? So, if it weren’t the weekend, they wouldn’t have any of this? Other buffets usually have this, no matter what time or day you visit!

Dessert was a mixed bag but could easily have been perfect. It had your regular dessert fare: fried, long, thin, sweet dough sticks, basic macaroons, palmiers, puddings, fruits, fried balled dough, and, surprisingly, a good amount of those cheap, sweet sheet cakes. This was the good part; they didn’t slack here, and the variety felt great.

However, the ice cream… oh man! What an absolute, weird mess.

First, they serve, well, you serve yourself, hard-serve instead of the typical soft-serve ice cream. Several different flavors were included, such as cotton candy, a delectable chunky cherry, strawberry, caramel, chocolate chip, coffee, and vanilla. Awesome, right? Well, wait. No toppings. No cones. And the quality? They were okay, perhaps a bit on the cheaper side.

Unfortunately, some of the large bins of ice cream were also already out in the middle of dinner and not replaced. But most importantly, they had only one serving spoon, which created long lines. After requesting another spoon, an employee said the other spoons had broken and that they didn’t have replacements. That’s strange, because during our dinner, these same employees were seen replacing the spoons and ice cream tubs as they closed later, after most guests had already left. It’s like they didn’t want people taking more… in the middle of dinner!

The other stations were reasonable enough. The salad bar was decent, featuring iceberg lettuce and some toppings like olives, peppers, kimchi, seaweed salad, pickles, and seeds. Not the biggest selection I’ve seen, nor the smallest. It’d be nice to see some lettuce variations and a bit more toppings in general. The sushi bar was almost excellent, with a large variety of rolls, wasabi, and, unfortunately, a permanently empty bowl of ginger. Lastly, the hibachi was as fulfilling as it could be, featuring everything you’d expect, though it wasn’t manned for a decent portion of the dinner for whatever reason.

A lot of these problems stem from staff and service. Speaking of which, it was miserable.

The atmosphere featured large, loud families with too many children running amok, and staff sprinting back and forth to attend to everyone—it really seemed they didn’t have enough staff. It felt rushed, chaotic, and overstimulating throughout the entire experience—don’t bring a date here! Of course, and mentioning this again to reiterate their service—despite some critical buffet items not being refilled as noted above—servers kept on top of customer refills and cleared plates, at least until 30-45 minutes before close, when the few staff went to cleaning, which left tables full of dirty dishes and empty cups. Also, annoyingly, the entire restaurant was so dark you could barely see the food in front of you. So, you can’t see, and all you hear are screaming children and overwhelmed employees.

30-45 minutes before close, they start breaking down the buffet, though even by close, there was still a decent amount of food out if you stuck around. On the other hand, during the time periods leading up to closing, it was stressful. Servers were loudly and aggressively cleaning: dragging metal chairs across the ground, running around, bringing you the check very early, etc. A frustrating occurrence happened when, around 30 minutes before close, as employees were throwing chairs around to clean under the tables, they actually stacked them about our back corner table, essentially trapping us for some time (see the photo in this post!).

Overall, this is your typical Chinese American buffet, but smaller and with too many frustrations around the service and atmosphere to consider, unless you have no other options. At this point, other places are simply better, such as Royal Buffet, which offers a substantially larger selection and a mildly better service and atmosphere overall. If employees can keep critical parts of the buffet stocked, be less aggressive during cleanup, be more attentive during later parts of dinner, and implement a policy on rowdy families, Hibachi Grill & Supreme buffet could be well worth a solid recommendation. Simply put, there were several times during the experience where you may ask yourself, “Is it even worth staying at this point? Get me out of this chaotic, loud mess, I’m getting a headache!” Also, barricading us wasn’t fun and left a sour taste in our mouths.