One day, deciding that I wanted to eat something different for lunch, I ended up back at Family Restaurant. (I’d add a link to their website here, but they don’t seem to have one. They do have a Facebook page, here, which has had very little activity.) Located just next door to the grill at the Duluth Rexall (which I’ve apparently failed to blog about) which is always packed, they seem to have a good number of cars here every day, too. Some people must have never eaten good Southern food.
The first warning should have been when the sign in the window said “Hot Wing”. No one sells “hot wing”. People sell “hot wings”. The second sign should have been that when I walked in, the main feature appeared to the be the lunch time buffet steam table. Cafeterias are one thing, but any place where you scoop your own food from a steam table doesn’t lend itself to fine dining.
The buffet is just to the right and below in the picture above (I cropped the picture to remove the mechanic in the bottom left of the photo) and had a broad selection of meats and vegetables. That picture was taken through the open window from the expansion dining room into the original, from my table.
The view below is from my table top, toward the window at the front of the restaurant.
I decided that I’d likely be better served by ordering from the menu, as the food would be “fresher”. So I ordered a meat & two, plus dessert and tea – fried pork chop, mac-n-cheese and mashed potatoes with gravy.
Then I watched the waitress make my plate at the buffet. 
I’ve rarely had a meal where nothing that I was served was any good, but this was a first. I ate less than half of anything. The best thing on the plate was the straight-from-a-mix gravy. My meal came with a dessert,
but, even the peach cobbler tasted bland.
What I really failed to understand is how my $6.99 meat and two, with dessert, bread and tea, turned out to be $9.16? I’m guessing they charged me for the Diet Coke, which is obviously more expensive than tea…
What a waste of time and money.
Burgers, Barbecue and Everything Else 
I’ll admit, this place isn’t high end dining, but the food is decent if you get it fresh. If you’re willing to try it again, order breakfast instead. It’s made to order, and the biscuits are pretty good in my opinion. This is a restaurant where a lot of seniors go to eat, so the food isn’t going to be spectacular and may be a little bland, but I like it and I’m fairly young. All that said, Family Restaurant may not be everyone’s favorite.
I’ll be forever amused that Jeff Foxworthy stopped here. There’s a picture of him near the cash register.