Saffron Indian Cuisine

The food is delicious, the portion sizes are large, and the waitstaff is lovely. The place is large, so we’ve never had to wait to be seated. Good gluten free menu too!

I had the Chicken Saagwala, which was very delicious. Nice ambience. Would come back again.

I don’t have a ton of experience with Indian food to compare Saffron to, but from what I’ve tasted it’s delicious. I’ve been several times and always opted for waitress service as opposed to the buffet. The staff is friendly though at times seem flustered and overwhelmed, however the food has always come out in a timely manner. My favorite dish is the Kadal Chicken.

TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE.
We patronized this restaurant twice and both times we had awful customer service experiences.
The first time, we had a sit-​down dinner in the restaurant. The food was fine, but at the end of our meal, our server spent the better part of thirty minutes proselytizing us. She delayed running our credit card so she could tell us more about how she wanted to save our souls. It was wildly inappropriate.
Still, we decided we liked the food enough to try ordering in. (We figured this would help us avoid any discussion of religion.) Big mistake. An hour and a half later our food still had not arrived. When we called to follow up, the phone pushed us to a voicemail box that was full. Thirty minutes after that, we got a snarky phone call from a delivery man who insisted he had stood outside our apartment for ten minutes and had called us repeatedly. The phone — which worked perfectly when he called to give us unsolicited attitude — hadn’t rung once, and no missed calls were shown.
If you love rude customer service and shamefully inappropriate conversations about converting religions, then this is the place for you! We, however, will never patronize this restaurant ever again.

Homemade hot naan as soon as you sit down, simple buffet with just the right choices. Not heavy at all like most Indian food places. amazing value in the buffet! Make sure to try the rice pudding (kheer)

HORRIBLE TERRIBLE AWFUL
My gf and I walked in on a Friday night and we should have walked straight out. We were the only people in the restaurant, but my gf wanted to try Indian and it was very close to her apartment on a cold rainy night.
My gf is gluten free. Almost the entire menu said that it was gluten free. She got the chicken korma which was labeled gluten free. Guess what… It wasn’t gluten free. She’s currently throwing up in our bathroom because of gluten in her food.
The mixed pickles were maybe pickles about 6 months ago but at this point they are mush.
I played a little game called «how long until the waitress fills our water glasses.» The answer: 21 mins. 21 minutes to fill water glasses when we are THE ONLY 2 PEOPLE IN THE RESTAURANT.
The food is bland and flavorless and the service is nonexistent.
This place will be out of business within a few months. At least I hope it is.
DONT GO HERE.

My wife and I were looking forward to trying a different restaurant, so I got a Groupon for Saffron. When we arrived, the manager refused to accept the Groupon. He insisted that it was valid for the North Broad location only, even though the Groupon states «Walnut Street location only valid Monday — Thursday.» Since this was a Wednesday, shouldn’t the Groupon be valid? The manager could not follow this logic, so we left to eat elsewhere.
This is not only obtuse (if my logic is sound) but poor business practice. Does he expect us to return?

Love this restaurant! I don’t pretend to know THAT much about Indian food, but I did live in Queens and I’ve been to tons of the «real» Indian restaurants in Jackson Heights.
We usually eat in for the buffet and it’s always been delicious, especially the goat biryani and the chicken vindaloo. Tandoori chicken is always really fresh and has great flavor. The saag paneer is really good, I wish they had it more on the buffet… and I can’t get over how cheap it is. If you get the take out buffet, you can get tons of good food and it probably won’t be more then 6 or 7 bucks. If you go for the buffet, I would advise going around 5 or 6. I went for a late lunch once (around 4) and the food was a bit cold. Although that was like a year ago and I think the owners might have changed?
The spice heat level here is low if you eat off the buffet. Tonight, I ordered off the menu and they asked what spice level I wanted. So i suppose they alter accordingly. I personally don’t like that much heat, just tons of flavor. Menu choice was chicken tikka masala. SO good. I want to live in that sauce… Naan delicious as usual.
I also like that when you eat in, the staff really don’t pay all that much attention to you unless they are refilling the water. This is not a 5 star restaurant and when I eat here, I really don’t need the 5 star service:)

My best friend and I came here for dinner around 5pm on a Saturday. We decided upon the buffet, which had an all right selection but all the food was cold. Our naan took a while to come out, but at least it was hot and fresh.
Our waitress was friendly, but she was talking on her phone for the majority of the time. Our plates weren’t cleared between sets.
Do yourself a favor and go to any other Indian place in this five mile radius of Philly.

This restaurant has a really convenient location in the city center as well as round the corner to a few cheap parking structures.
However if this is the best part of a food establishment… That’s definitely an issue.
The ambience is casual with formal flares like cloth napkins and intimate seating. However if this place were crowded it would be horrible for a first date.
Avoid the buffet. It is cold. Not a lot of variety, and even more limited for vegetarians.
The food to order is served hot and is delicious but the buffet was advertised so much that we opted for it and were severely let down.
The prices are pretty decent for cheap Indian though. If you just want something cheap, this is a good fill up. But with so many places within walking distance I wouldn’t recommend it.

Today I went here for the second time for lunch. It was probably the worst experience I have had at a restaurant. The restaurant was empty with only one server for it being a late lunch time. The food was bland (the white, the biryani and the chicken tikka masala which was sweet). The water was not cold or have any ice for a warm summer day. My friend and I were waiting for naan and it was over 15 minutes late so we just decided to pay and leave.
Earlier this week when I went along with my co-​workers (6 of us total) we had an okay experience. We were seated promptly after walking in since it was the lunch hour rush but even after we all filled our plates with food from the buffet we were sitting eagerly waiting for our glasses of water to be filled. One of my colleagues asked for a coke and had to wait over 15 minutes to get it. Overall the service was slow and we all believed that it was due to the rush hour crowd.
I firstly assumed that the service here may be slow because of the crowds that sometimes happen but that is not the case. The service of this restaurant is bad whether it is busy or not. The food is not authentic or satisfying. For this restaurant to succeed in the center city district they must work on their waitstaff asap.

Anyone giving this restaurant more than 1 star is being extremely generous. Walking inside the place appears dark and dingy. There are no employees present clearing dishes or greeting customers during the lunch hour rush… Which isn’t much of a rush here with 4 people dining in the entire restaurant. After waiting at least 5 minutes by the register to be helped, a woman comes out from the kitchen and totally disregards me and turns to an older man standing behind me to tell him his order is ready and proceeds to ring him up without even saying hello to me or acknowledging that she is making me wait to be helped. I ordered some food for pick-​up and without even a smile the woman tells me the total and that I cannot use my Groupon for he order because she was losing money on them… I show her the fine print and ask her what she means? She says she won’t let me use my voucher and I should call Groupon to ask for my money back. An apology wouldn’t have helped much but she didn’t even offer one. I think restaurants like this with poor atmosphere and sad looking food that treat customers without an ounce of respect… I’m surprised that you even have any customers that would want to support your business.

Decent indian food on walnut. The all you can eat buffet is the best value for your buck. My friend and I go here when we have time for lunch. We easily get 2 – 3 plates each and are only charged $ 8 a person! =) Complementary naan (bread) with your meal.
If you decide to take food to go. It’s weighed/​charged by the pound which is actually pretty awesome. All i took was a little bit of chicken tikka masala (enough for one meal) and was charge $ 1 ha! love it! Naan to-​go is $ 2 a piece but they are huge. Which means you can easily have a nice meal for $ 5! Who can beat that?
Staff is nice, and when you’re eating they are out of your way and don’t bother you. I’ve been here at least 5 times and i’ll def be back.

Awful!!!
I came with my daughter ready to enjoy an Indian buffet for dinner. I should have looked at the buffet before we sat down. Maybe 6 entrees. All chicken. All around the same shade of brown. No spice, no flavor. Lukewarm. Truly hope we didn’t get sick. Naan was old and oily. I figured we’d eat some dessert to make up for the gross food but the donut ball things were ICE COLD and hard as rocks. Even my daughter’s Mango Lassi was bad. Wish I had my money back and the stomach space.
Server was friendly but didn’t make up for terrible food. Should have been negative stars.

I was craving some indian curry today and decided to check out Saffron for some quick take out lunch. Although the selection was lacking I was optimistic as I picked up some goat briyani, some chicken curry and tandoori chicken. Needless to say I will be sticking to my usual Mumbai Bistro on 10^th and Locust. Not only was my lunch bland and disappointing, service was slow even though there were only two tables occupied. The only saving grace was that my lunch was under $ 5.

I would give this place a 3 star. I went to this place a couple times and the advice I would like to give others are:
1) There is not a lot of food option for the buffet. So, don’t be expecting too much for this price. However, most of food that they offer taste great. The Naan is also given to customer as a complementary.
2) The restaurant itself is kind of rundown. It’s not very clean and it’s sad to see this because it means that owners don’t really care.
3) Service is ok. One time, I asked to sit outside because I had my dog with me. I had to wait about 10 minutes for service which I didn’t receive. So, I had to walk inside the restaurant and acknowledged them of my presence. The owner gave me a weird look and told me that I had to pay first. I just thought it was really strange. I was treated like a non paying customer. Thumbs down to you !!!
Anyway, I think if somebody paid for my meal then I would visit the place. But If I had to pay out of my pocket, I would consider some other places.

Great find. Food fresh. BYOB. They had buffet for dinner which looked good. I ordered from the menu… mango lassi, nan, mango chutney, lamb seekh kabob with balsami rice and onions, peppers and tomato. $ 25 service was slow, but friendly.

We had the weekend lunch buffet. It was okay but nothing tasted really fresh. Not bad, just like it had been reheated from last night’s buffet. Many of the items were unlabeled and the man working the buffet could best be described as aloof. I have to disagree with the reviewer who described the interior as «palatial». It was tired and worn, take a look at the thermostat for example or that weird area underneath it that looks like a balcony for a barbie doll. I don’t hold the interior against them but it’s really not impressive. The one impressive thing was that the naan was included in the price of our buffet.
If I lived in the neighborhood I’d go back if someone else suggested Saffron, but if I were picking a restaurant I’d try somewhere else to see if I could find someplace better.

Some 4 – 6 years ago this place used to be my go-​to for Indian Buffet in Philly. Tonight I returned after not having gone for a year or so, and it has gone downhill in the extreme.
Let’s start with the price. For the dinner buffet (identical to lunch) plus an iced tea, it came out to just under $ 17. That’s outrageous.
Then there was the service. I sat down, and got the stinkeye from the woman who was clearly managing for the evening. When she finally seated me, and I told her I would be having the buffet, she asked if I would like Naan and I said yes. A minute later she brought a plate of it to a nearby table (only two other tables had patrons.) I went and got a plate of food, and then waited briefly for my Naan to come out. After several minutes I went ahead and ate my food, thinking surely it would be out by the second plate.
After finishing, and no Naan, I sat and quietly waited for several more minutes, and then eventually flagged down a busboy and asked him if it was coming out. He brought it right away. The reality here is that I simply wasn’t deemed an important enough customer to be given decent service.
The condition: a mess. I was seated at a table by the window and door, meaning every time the door was opened the freezing outside winter air blew onto me. This despite nearly the entire restaurant being empty. When I was seated she said «We’ll put you here because it’s nice and clean,» but there was food spill on the floor by the table and numerous yellow spots all over the table cloth.
I have no complaints about the food. I found it to be perfectly tasty. I had chicken biryani, chicken tikka, two veggie samosas and a potato dish the name of which has escaped me. Still, for the quality of the food, this should be a $ 9.99 buffet at best.
Really it was the poor service and outrageous cost that has caused such a low rating.

Came here a few year back in my pre-​Yelp days for their lunch buffet and remember it being really good.
I came here for lunch today because they have take-​out buffet for $ 4.50/lb and was craving my mama’s cooking (I won’t belittle my mom and compare her cooking to this place though).
There were only a handful of curries and the vegetarian ones were the boring channa masala (garbano beans), saag (spinach), and this other one. I wanted some paneer yo!
The saag needed more salt, but was fine. Rice needed salt too and maybe some jeera (idk name in English. cumin?) The other one I had was like a vegetable medly with a creamy base which was so bad. No flavor and the vegetables seem frozen. Food wasn’t nice and hot either. Naan $ 1 extra.
The food was pretty meh, but I’m keeping it at 3 instead of 2 because of the price/​convenience. I was in and out in a few minutes and got a whole takeout box of food for like $ 6.50 and stuffed.