FOOD

Roney’s keeps the breakfast buffet focused on the foods that make a second plate feel inevitable. The core starts with scrambled eggs, pork sausage, bacon, home fries and breakfast breads, a lineup that reads more like a classic American breakfast multiplied into buffet form than a destination brunch trying to cover every possible category. That simplicity works in its favor: the plate has a center, and the choices around it are easy to understand.

Start with the savory foundation. Scrambled eggs are the obvious anchor, ready to take bacon on one side and a scoop of home fries on the other. Pork sausage adds the heavier, seasoned counterpoint. These are not merely obligatory buffet fillers here; they establish the breakfast vocabulary that makes every later return trip make sense. One plate can stay completely traditional, while the next can start rearranging the same building blocks.

Biscuits and sausage gravy move the meal into full comfort-food territory. The biscuit gives the gravy something substantial to cling to, and the sausage brings enough savory weight that this can easily become the center of a plate rather than a side thought. It is also the natural bridge between the egg-and-meat half of the buffet and the softer, sweeter things that begin to pull breakfast toward brunch.

That sweeter side is where Roney’s gets more playful. French toast sticks come with maple syrup, and pancakes add the broad, soft griddle-food option that almost demands a return trip after the savory plate is gone. Cinnamon apples bring another warm, sweet note without turning breakfast into dessert. Together they create the classic buffet problem in miniature: syrup and gravy occupy competing corners of the same plate, and eventually it is easier to go back than to negotiate.

Goetta gives the breakfast menu its Cincinnati accent. The region’s pork-and-oat sausage sits among Roney’s breakfast-side choices and can give the buffet a distinctly local turn. When it joins the line, it is worth treating as more than another breakfast meat: its grainy interior and browned exterior place the meal firmly in Greater Cincinnati. Bacon and pork sausage are universal; goetta tells you where you are.

Croissants or toast round out the starting lineup, useful both as breakfast bread and as practical equipment for the rest of the plate. Toast catches egg, gravy and the last bits of potato; a croissant pushes the meal slightly richer without making it fussy. This is the kind of buffet where those small choices matter because the selection is compact enough for each one to register. Nothing needs a dedicated station or chef action to earn a place.

The best way to read Roney’s breakfast buffet is not by counting pans. Its strength is how naturally the foods combine across two or three short trips: eggs with bacon and potatoes first, biscuits and gravy next, then a pancake or French toast sticks once the plate has room for syrup. At this scale, abundance comes from permission to repeat rather than spectacle. The $9.99 price reinforces that spirit, making the meal feel less like a special-occasion brunch and more like an old local habit that happens to come with unlimited returns.