New Ming Garden Buffet and Grill.

Overview

The story New Ming Garden tells about itself starts with a delivery route. In 1993, the family's father was driving a product-delivery truck when a stop in Waynesboro put him next to the Kroger shopping center, where a small Chinese takeout joint had a for-sale sign in the window. He took it as an omen more than an opportunity: a good spot, a chance to cook the flavors of the family's hometown for people who had never tasted them. The family is from Fuzhou, in China's Fujian province, and by their own account they came to love Virginia as much as the place they left. A year later, in 1994, they opened the first Ming Garden as a takeout counter.

The buffet came later, and it came from the customers. People kept suggesting it, the family says, so they cleared room for a dine-in spread. When the current premises nearby went up for sale in 2006, they bought a building that was in rough shape but had bones worth saving. Renovations took close to two years. New Ming Garden opened in its rebuilt home in 2008 with more than a hundred items on offer, and that is roughly where the restaurant stands today.

For Crozet, this is an over-the-mountain destination. New Ming Garden sits in Waynesboro, on the far side of Afton, which makes it the kind of place you fold into a trip west rather than a weeknight impulse. But it is close enough to count, and a full Chinese buffet with a hundred-plus dishes is not something Crozet itself offers.

What to order

The restaurant flags a handful of dishes as its featured items, and they read like a fair map of what the buffet does well. General Tso's chicken leads the list, alongside beef with broccoli, shrimp fried rice, and fried cheese wonton. None of that is exotic, and that is rather the point of a buffet like this one: the appeal is breadth and reliability, the same familiar plates done again and again for a crowd that ranges across every age and taste. With more than a hundred items in rotation, the featured four are less a menu than a suggestion of where to start.

The full menu is available as a PDF on the restaurant's site, and there is a printed listing beyond the buffet line for anyone ordering off the grill or for takeout.

Finding it

New Ming Garden is at 316 Federal St, Waynesboro, VA 22980, and the phone is (540) 942-8800. The kitchen keeps a six-day week: closed Mondays, then open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 AM. Most nights it runs until 9 PM, with Friday and Saturday stretching to 10. If you would rather not make the drive, the restaurant delivers through DoorDash, though from the Crozet side of the mountain the buffet is the reason to go in person.

More on the restaurant, including its own account of the family's history and a gallery of photos from the 2008 opening, is at minggardenwbo.com.

More restaurant in Crozet

Restaurant

Birch + Bloom

Restaurant in the Crozet area.

Restaurant

Birdhouse

Restaurant in the Crozet area.

Restaurant

Black Cow Chophouse

Restaurant in the Crozet area.

Restaurant

Blue Ridge Pizza Co.

Restaurant in the Crozet area.

← Back to the Crozet business directory