This Pennsylvania buffet does not believe in one-and-done plates.
The story stretches back to 1929, when home-cooked meals beside a roadside gas station started drawing hungry customers. Chicken and waffles helped turn that simple beginning into something much bigger.
Nearly a century later, Pennsylvania Dutch comfort food still runs the show. Scratch-made favorites fill the buffet, while baked goods and dessert keep testing your plate strategy.
That is where the plan usually falls apart. Soup looks harmless until fried chicken appears. Noodles make their move. Dessert starts lobbying early.
One lap rarely settles anything here. The real challenge is deciding what deserves the encore.
A Gas Station Lunch Counter Grew Into A Lancaster County Tradition
The story starts with truck repairs, hungry drivers, and one very productive kitchen.
Enos Miller operated a truck-repair shop and gas station along Lincoln Highway East. In 1929, Anna Miller began serving home-cooked meals to customers while they waited for work on their vehicles.
Her Pennsylvania Dutch cooking attracted more diners, and the food operation expanded into space previously occupied by the repair shop.
Anna’s chicken and waffles became one of the early signatures. The combination remains connected to Miller’s today, carrying the current buffet back toward the roadside meals that first brought customers through the door.
In 1948, Anna and Enos sold the restaurant to longtime employees Beatrice and Thomas Strauss. The business continued growing under the Strauss family.
A major change arrived in 1957, when the restaurant officially became Miller’s Smorgasbord. That same year introduced the “seven sweets and seven sours,” a Pennsylvania Dutch-style selection that remains part of the buffet.
The property continued expanding as the menu and number of visitors grew, but the restaurant stayed connected to the Lancaster County cooking that shaped its beginning.
The trucks outside may look very different now. Inside, feeding hungry travelers still has top billing.
Chicken And Waffles Still Carry The Original Story
Before chicken and waffles became a brunch-menu celebrity, Anna Miller was already putting her version on the table.
The Pennsylvania Dutch preparation served at Miller’s follows a savory route. Chicken, waffles, and gravy come together as a hearty entrée rather than the sweet-and-fried combination found on many modern menus.
That places the dish comfortably beside chicken pot pie, brown buttered noodles, soups, local salads, and the other regional foods spread across the buffet.
Trying it also creates one of the clearest connections to 1929. The restaurant has expanded, the number of dishes has multiplied, and the dining rooms have changed, but chicken and waffles still point directly toward Anna Miller’s earliest meals.
Just do not let enthusiasm consume the entire plate.
Fried chicken, carved meats, peel-and-eat shrimp, vegetables, noodles, potatoes, breads, salads, and several other contenders are waiting farther down the line.
A modest helping keeps enough open territory for whatever catches your eye next.
Pennsylvania has plenty of dishes with strong regional roots. At Miller’s, one of the oldest stories arrives with a waffle underneath it and gravy over the top.
Eight Homemade Soups Make The First Stop Surprisingly Difficult
Soup usually occupies one quiet corner of a menu. Here, it gets eight chances to change your plans.
The smorgasbord includes eight homemade soups, giving the beginning of the buffet enough variety to slow down anyone heading directly toward the hot entrées.
Lancaster County chicken corn soup keeps the selection firmly connected to the region. Seafood bisque, cream of potato, ham and bean, vegetarian vegetable, vegetarian chili, and rotating soups can also appear in the lineup.
Fresh breads and warm rolls wait nearby, which creates another temptation before the main stations have even entered the conversation.
The cold side stretches the choices again. More than a dozen Lancaster County salads and a make-your-own salad bar bring vegetables, chilled specialties, and familiar favorites into the mix.
Then come the “seven sweets and seven sours,” the tradition introduced in 1957 and still represented on the smorgasbord.
Broccoli salad, coleslaw, red beets, hot bacon dressing, breads, and other selections can quickly turn a planned starter into a surprisingly crowded plate.
Take one bowl, choose your favorites, and remember what is waiting ahead.
The first part of Miller’s buffet does not behave like an opening act. It tries very hard to become the whole show.
Hot Dishes Make One Plate Look Hopelessly Optimistic
The first plate always begins with confidence. The hot stations tend to humble it.
Miller’s traditional smorgasbord includes appetizers, soups, salads, breads, hot entrées, hot sides, a carving station, and desserts. Individual selections can rotate, giving the line a combination of familiar fixtures and changing dishes.
Fried chicken remains one of the regular attractions. Anna’s chicken and waffles keeps the original story alive, while chicken pot pie brings another Pennsylvania Dutch favorite into the spread.
Peel-and-eat shrimp sends the plate in a completely different direction.
The carving station adds freshly sliced meat, and surrounding hot sides can include brown buttered noodles, mashed potatoes, stuffing, macaroni and cheese, vegetables, and other selections.
This is where plate geography becomes serious business.
Fried chicken claims one side. Noodles spread farther than expected. Potatoes settle into the remaining corner, and then you discover something farther down the line that absolutely deserved a reservation.
Walking past the stations before filling the plate can save some difficult decisions.
It also gives the less obvious dishes a fighting chance. A regional side or casserole you did not expect may become the bite that follows you home in your memory.
One plate can perform admirable work. Asking it to carry the entire smorgasbord is simply unreasonable.
Sunday Brunch Lets Breakfast Join The Buffet Party
Sunday gives the buffet permission to ignore normal meal boundaries.
From late morning into early afternoon, Miller’s adds brunch items such as creamed dried beef, scrapple, and grilled sticky buns to the traditional smorgasbord.
That puts several Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast favorites within reach without removing the soups, salads, hot entrées, carving station, or desserts waiting elsewhere.
Scrapple brings one of the region’s most recognizable morning foods to the line. Creamed dried beef offers another old-fashioned staple, while grilled sticky buns make a strong argument for starting with something sweet.
The resulting plate might look confused anywhere else.
At Miller’s, sticky buns beside savory food, breakfast beside fried chicken, and soup somewhere in the middle can all coexist without anyone calling a meeting.
Sunday also gives newcomers another route into Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. Several traditional breakfast foods join the dishes available throughout regular buffet service, putting different pieces of Lancaster County food culture within one meal.
The only challenge is remembering that brunch has not magically made your plate larger.
The calendar may insist it is Sunday. Your plate gets to decide whether it is breakfast, lunch, or something much more ambitious.
The Bakery Makes Saving Room A Serious Negotiation
Dessert does not sit quietly at the end of this buffet. It starts campaigning while you are still holding the dinner plate.
The Strauss family expanded Miller’s baking operation in 1973 by establishing Miller’s Bakery beside the restaurant.
That baking tradition remains visible in the dessert selection and in the neighboring Locally Made Food Shop, where Miller’s baked goods continue to be sold.
The buffet dessert station can include fruit pies, cakes, cheesecake, raisin bread, hand-dipped ice cream, and other sweets. The exact lineup can change, making the final lap another exercise in choosing carefully.
Shoofly pie keeps the Pennsylvania Dutch connection going after the savory plates disappear. Chocolate pecan pie takes a richer route, while sticky buns and raisin bread offer something worth carrying home.
Whoopie pies provide another Lancaster County-friendly souvenir for anyone whose appetite ran out before curiosity did.
That is the convenient part of having the bakery operation next door. Dessert does not necessarily have to fit inside you before leaving the property.
Locally Made Food Shop carries raisin bread, chocolate pecan pie, sticky buns, shoofly pies, whoopie pies, jams, dressings, and other regional foods.
The main buffet may win the first several rounds. Dessert has been waiting patiently for the closing argument.
Nearly A Century Later The Buffet Still Knows Its Role
Miller’s has changed plenty since Anna Miller began feeding customers beside a repair shop, but the buffet still revolves around giving people a broad table of home-style food.
The restaurant remains family owned and continues preparing many established recipes from scratch. Chicken and waffles, fried chicken, soups, Lancaster County salads, hot entrées, carved meats, breads, and desserts keep several eras of its history on the same buffet.
Miller’s currently serves guests seven days a week, with operating hours changing during parts of the year. Reservations are available, and walk-in diners are also welcomed when seating is available.
The surrounding Shoppes at Miller’s give you more to explore after the plates are cleared. Locally Made Food Shop carries baked goods and regional foods, while Anna’s Gifts & Sundries and neighboring stores extend the stop beyond lunch or dinner.
Miller’s Smorgasbord is located at 2811 Lincoln Highway East, Ronks, Pennsylvania 17572, along Route 30 in Lancaster County.
The property is much larger than the roadside operation Anna and Enos knew in 1929, yet chicken and waffles still sit on the buffet nearly a century later.
Your first plate can chase the history. Your second can chase whatever smelled too good to ignore.
When the plate is empty and the buffet is still calling, which station gets round two?