Dinner Buffet at Cleveland Heights Golf Course in Lakeland, Florida

During our third stay at our vacation home in late 2010, our neighbours invited us to the Early Bird Entertainment Revue and Buffet hosted by Ruby's at the Avenue in Lakeland, Florida (3405 South Florida Avenue in Lakeland, Florida).   This is a weekly event featuring a dinner buffet ($10.95) followed by entertainment by some of the greats - Jim Hendrick (radio station host and MC for the evening), Ken Brady (The Casinos), Jack and Jerry Calhoun.  Eddie Snyder (American composer and song writer)  was at the table behind us!  Nancy Cattarius (Vice President and General Manager of WONN, WPCV, WLKF, and WWRZ) is there fairly often.  Other wonderful entertainers include Dale Glenn (one of our friends), Pablo Reyes, Margaret Burcham, Lorrie Messina and Carlos Roman as well as special appearances by other talented entertainers.

In 2012, the Early Bird Entertainment Revue and Buffet was moved to Cleveland Heights Golf Course located at 2900 Buckingham Ave in Lakeland, Florida.  Cleveland Heights Golf Course is a Division of the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of Lakeland.  The Revue is held in the spacious club house which offers more seating and a larger dance floor than Ruby's which is nice as it has been a full house every time we have gone.  Seating is by reservation as far as I know.  We always sit with our friends, Dale and his wife as well as a couple of the entertainers, but have gotten to know a lot of the entertainers and regulars.

Ruby is the cook at The Avenue however the restaurant and kitchen are closed for renovations.  Cleveland Heights Golf Course has a full service restaurant, The Grille open from 6 am to 2 pm daily.  The dinner buffet for the Revue starts at 4 pm so the food is catered in from Ruby.

The buffet is set up is a separate room just off the lounge, behind the stage.  It is all you can with food available until the entertainment ends.  The meal usually consists of soup, salad bar, three choices of meat, three choices of vegetables as well as dessert.  Of course there are all the extras like dinner rolls, condiments and that type of thing.  The menu does vary.  Sometimes the theme is fish, other times chicken as well as pastas.  Usually one of the vegetables is some type of potato dish.

We enjoyed an evening at Early Bird Revue and Buffet the Tuesday before we left (Dec. 20) to come back to the cold weather in Ontario.  The food on the buffet is very much home style cooking and that's what makes it good.  It's not pretentious or fancy, just tasty!  I had roast turkey with cranberry sauce and gravy, ham, yams, collard greens and dressing.  Doesn't it look like a delicious, homemade, home style cooked meal?

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