Miller's Smorgasbord is a buffet restaurant located in Ronks, Pennsylvania.
In 1929 Enos Miller opened a gas station and automobile repair shop on Lincoln Highway East in Ronks, Pennsylvania. Anna Miller, wife of Enos, sold home cooked food to customers and became renowned for her Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine. The food side of the business became so successful that the Millers expanded it into the repair shop's space. The business was sold to employees Beatrice and Thomas Strauss in 1948 by the Millers. In 1957 the restaurant would receive its current name "Miller’s Smorgasbord." [1]
Miller's Smorgasbord and a number of associated retail establishments were listed for sale in 2014. [2]
Miller's Smorgasbord seats 400 people. [3]
Miller's primarily serves Pennsylvania Dutch comfort foods. [4]
The Shoppes at Miller's is a shopping center associated with Miller's Smorgasbord. [5]
In 2024 Miller's Smorgasbord was ranked the #3 buffet in the country by USA Today, competitor Shady Maple Smorgasbord was ranked #1. [5] [6]
A salad bar is a buffet-style table or bar where customers can create their own salad plates from salad components. Salad bars are commonly found in restaurants, food markets, and school or college cafeterias.
Lancaster County, sometimes nicknamed the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 552,984, making it Pennsylvania's sixth-most populous county. Its county seat is also Lancaster. Lancaster County comprises the Lancaster metropolitan statistical area. The county is part of the South Central region of the state.
Lancaster is a city in and the county seat of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. With a population of 58,039 at the 2020 census, it is the tenth-most populous city in the state. It is a core city within South Central Pennsylvania, with 552,984 residents in the Lancaster metropolitan area.
Intercourse is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Leacock Township, Lancaster County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, 10 miles (16 km) east of Lancaster on Pennsylvania Route 340. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,494, up from 1,274 at the previous census. It is about 8 miles away from Blue Ball, a town with a similarly unusual name.
Bird-in-Hand is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, in East Lampeter Township. The "Bird in Hand" ZIP code extends east from the CDP into Leacock and Upper Leacock townships. The community has a large Amish and Mennonite population. As of the 2010 census, the population within the CDP was 402.
East Lampeter Township is a township in central Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 17,834.
The Pennsylvania Dutch, also referred to as Pennsylvania Germans, are an ethnic group in Pennsylvania (U.S.), Ontario (Canada) and other regions of the United States and Canada, most predominantly in the US Mid-Atlantic region. They largely originate from the Palatinate region of Germany, and settled in Pennsylvania during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. While most were from the Palatinate region of Germany, a lesser number were from other German-speaking areas of Germany and Europe, including Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Saxony, and Rhineland in Germany, Switzerland, and the Alsace–Lorraine region of France.
Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania German is a variety of Palatine German spoken by the Pennsylvania Dutch, including the Amish, Mennonites, Fancy Dutch, and other related groups in the United States and Canada. There are approximately 300,000 native speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch in the United States and Canada.
A buffet is a system of serving meals in which food is placed in a public area where the diners serve themselves. A form of service à la française, buffets are offered at various places including hotels, restaurants, and many social events. Buffet restaurants normally offer all-you-can-eat food for a set price, but some measure prices by weight or by number of dishes. Buffets usually have some or mostly hot dishes, so the term cold buffet has been developed to describe formats lacking hot food. Hot or cold buffets usually involve dishware and utensils, but a finger buffet is an array of foods that are designed to be small and easily consumed only by hand, such as cupcakes, slices of pizza, foods on cocktail sticks, etc.
Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine is the typical and traditional fare of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Hex signs are a form of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art, related to fraktur, found in the Fancy Dutch tradition in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Barn paintings, usually in the form of "stars in circles", began to appear on the landscape in the early 19th century and became widespread decades later when commercial ready-mixed paint became readily available. By the 1950s commercialized hex signs, aimed at the tourist market, became popular and these often include stars, compass roses, stylized birds known as distelfinks, hearts, tulips, or a tree of life. Two schools of thought exist on the meaning of hex signs. One school ascribes a talismanic nature to the signs; the other sees them as purely decorative. Both schools recognize that there are sometimes superstitions associated with certain hex sign themes and neither ascribes strong magical power to them. The Amish do not use hex signs.
Ronks is a small unincorporated farming community and census-designated place (CDP) in East Lampeter Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, just west of Paradise. As of the 2010 census the population was 362.
On October 2, 2006, a shooting occurred at the West Nickel Mines School, an Amish one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order Amish community of Nickel Mines, a village in Bart Township, Pennsylvania. Gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV took hostages and shot ten girls, killing six, before committing suicide in the schoolhouse. The emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation in the Amish community's response was widely discussed by the national media. The West Nickel Mines School was later demolished, and a new one-room schoolhouse, the New Hope School, was built at another location.
The Amish, formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss and Alsatian origins. As they maintain a degree of separation from surrounding populations, and hold their faith in common, the Amish have been described by certain scholars as an ethnoreligious group, combining features of an ethnicity and a Christian denomination. The Amish are closely related to Old Order Mennonites and Conservative Mennonites, denominations that are also a part of Anabaptist Christianity. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, Christian pacifism, and slowness to adopt many conveniences of modern technology, with a view neither to interrupt family time, nor replace face-to-face conversations whenever possible, and a view to maintain self-sufficiency. The Amish value rural life, manual labor, humility and Gelassenheit.
Smörgåsbord is a buffet-style meal of Swedish origin. It is served with various hot and mainly cold dishes.
The Red Caboose Motel is a 48-room train motel in the Amish country near Ronks, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where guests stay in railroad cabooses. The motel consists of over three dozen cabooses and other railroad cars, such as dining cars that serve as a restaurant. It was developed and opened in 1970 by Donald M. Denlinger, who started with 19 surplus cabooses purchased at auction from the Penn Central Railroad. The expanded and renovated property has also hosted railroad-themed events and concerts and dances in its barn.
The Shady Maple Smorgasbord is a buffet restaurant located in East Earl, Pennsylvania. It is the largest buffet in the country.