BUFFET

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A culinary bounty awaits. At our array of buffet stations, guests can help themselves to American and international cuisines, but remember to save room for our fantastic dessert bar.

Jazzys Corner:Videos to Watch:Our Adoption Story: https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&videoid=Z. As of Jan 30, 2021, prices found for a 1-night stay for 2 adults at Morongo Casino Resort Spa - Adults Only on Feb 1, 2021 start from $119, excluding taxes and fees. This price is based on the lowest nightly price found in the last 24 hours for stays in the next 30 days. Prices are subject to change. Choose your dates for more accurate prices. Morongo Casino Resort & Spa. 49500 Seminole Dr. Cabazon, California 92230 Toll free: 1-800-252-4499 Local: 951-849-3080 Email: morongo@morongo.com. Sign Up For Our.

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• Cuisine

  Italian, American, Mexican, Asian

• Price

  $$

• Ambience

  Casual

• Dress

  Casual

RESTAURANT DETAILS

Dining Hours

Temporarily closed

LOCATION

Casino Floor

Information

(951) 770-8505

Buffet Prices

Prices may vary on holidays and is subject to change. Management reserves all rights.

Club Card Discounts

Lobster and Seafood Extravaganza

Thursdays • 4PM - 11PM

Pechanga Buffet guests can enjoy their fill of all you can eat, one-and-one-quarter pound whole Maine lobster done in an East Coast lobster bake style with roasted potatoes and corn on the cob. From 4PM to close at 11PM, diners receive a piping hot lobster bake bag containing the just-cooked lobster (flown in from Maine the night before) and fixings.
Guests can also fill their plates with enhanced buffet seafood selections from the upgraded sushi station, a whole-salmon carving station, fresh and baked oyster station, snow crab, fish tacos, ceviche, calamari, Dungeness crab, clam chowder, shrimp and much more.

Krystle Schenk – Pechanga Buffet Chef

As many as 1,400 people can come through the Pechanga Buffet doors each day. They’re all there to enjoy the international array of foods Chef Krystle Schenk and her team prepares around the clock for the popular restaurant. Chef Krystle Schenk describes herself as always feeling completely comfortable in the kitchen. She fondly remembers spending time with her mom and sisters making holiday dishes during family get togethers.
She took Introduction to Cooking classes in high school, but her decision to follow her culinary passion came long before. “It was the only thing I was ever really interested in.” Krystle enrolled in the Art Institute of California in Orange County and began working toward her culinary degree. She worked in restaurants in the Palm Springs area then traded in the desert heat to work at Pechanga. When the head buffet chef position presented itself in the summer of 2019, Krystle saw an opportunity to again expand her culinary prowess. She always brings her cooking back to her guests.

HOPE YOU'RE HUNGRY

DISCOVER MORE

• Lobby Bar & Grill

• PECHANGA CAFÉ

• ROUND BAR

EAT AND PLAY THE REWARDS WAY

Dine at any one of our 11 Pechanga restaurants to receive exclusive discounts and pricing.

• Fun in the Sun - Cabana Package

  Pool Party Anyone?

• Queen Deluxe

  Comfort Meets Beauty

• Lunar New Year

  Lunar New Year $100,000 EasyPlay & Cash Drawings
  February 5 & 19

Tareef Talala, owner of The Village, a restaurant and sports bar in downtown Palm Springs, was forced to stop offering in-person dining this month when the state issued stay-at-home orders.

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So when he stopped by to check out the scene at the Morongo Casino, Resort and Spa in Cabazon, it was a jolt to see some of his regular customers enjoying a night out just 20 miles up the road. The tribal casino's indoor restaurants and bars are open alongside its gambling options.

'I care about COVID-19, I care about disease,' Talala said. 'But how can we control it if people are going there, then coming back out?'

It's a question many Coachella Valley residents and even some casino employees are asking as California has added more than 1 million COVID-19 cases in the past six weeks. Tribal gaming facilities are not subject to the state's regional stay-at-home orders, and most in California are keeping their doors open, even as limited data points to outbreaks at some casinos.

In San Diego County, more than 630 coronavirus cases have been tied to seven area casinos from late June to mid-December, according to a report published this week by KPBS. Linking a case with a casino means that a person was there within two weeks of being diagnosed with the virus, but does not mean the person contracted COVID-19 there or infected anyone else, the outlet reported.

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In the Central Valley, Harrah’s Northern California in Ione, owned by the Buena Vista Band of Me-Wuk Indians, opened last year. A casino in Jackson is operated by the Jackson Rancheria Tribe and the Ione Band of Miwok Indians plan to build a gaming facility in Plymouth.

Placer County officials reported that one 'apparent outbreak' this month has led to about a dozen cases so far. San Bernardino County, which has three casinos, reported no outbreaks at tribal casinos.

While public data about COVID-19 cases and casinos remains piecemeal across the state, some public health experts are concerned that the indoor properties are open while about 98% of Californians are currently under a state stay-at-home order. Available intensive care unit capacity in the Southern California region is hovering at about 0% this week.

'I think (casinos staying open) has the potential for a really negative impact and increasing cases in this pandemic,' said Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside.

In interviews with The Desert Sun, four employees from three California casinos expressed similar concerns: They feel stuck in a dangerous work environment but don't want to be unemployed and without health insurance during a pandemic. All spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation from their employers, but showed proof of employment to The Desert Sun.

'I think (casinos) should close, at least for two or three weeks, not even a month, just to help get this pandemic a little bit under control,' said an employee from Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa Rancho Mirage. 'Especially for the sake of nurses and doctors — I can't imagine what they're going through right now.'

The four casino workers reiterated that they don't speak for every employee, and that there are differing opinions within the workforce. Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio alone has roughly 1,000 employees.

Still, some feel it's only a matter of time until they get COVID-19.

'It's an incredibly stressful place to work,' one employee of Fantasy Springs said. 'Most of us feel we are just waiting for our turn to get the virus.'

Some safety restrictions loosen over time

Native American tribes, as sovereign nations, are not required to follow the state's current shutdown orders. And each California tribe with a casino has taken a different approach to operating during the pandemic.

Some are only offering takeout from their restaurants during the shutdown, while others are allowing visitors to eat and drink inside.

At Fantasy Springs, owned by the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, indoor restaurants and bars are open. The last few weeks have been busy, two casino employees said. And because non-tribal card rooms in the region were forced to close, there seem to be more players traveling from places like Los Angeles County — the epicenter of the state's COVID-19 surge.

'We're getting crowds of people every day now because there's nowhere else to go,' said the first employee. 'We have a whole new clientele.'

By staying open and welcoming visitors, Fantasy Springs is undermining the goal of the latest shutdown, as well as the economic hardship that other businesses are forced to suffer, the employee added.

But the employee didn't always feel this way. 'I always had a lot of respect for the tribe and Fantasy Springs,' the worker said.

In the spring, when the casino voluntarily closed during the state's first stay-at-home order, both Fantasy Springs employees who spoke with The Desert Sun said they received leave with pay, and then transitioned into furlough status as unemployment payments kicked into gear.

When the casino eventually reopened, the precautions in place sounded good, the first employee said. There were temperature checks at the door. Games were sanitized and cleaned regularly. There was a 'dead' table between every table game with players, and tables were limited to three people each.

'I was impressed by that. And I thought, 'Okay, well, they're taking it seriously,' ' the employee said.

But gradually, some of those restrictions have loosened, or now seem ineffective.

When the casino gets busy at night, customers bunch up in groups, the employee said. The mask policy is only enforced in earnest in the table games area. All tables are open, and there are four people to a game. In the surrounding indoor bars and restaurants, many people don't wear masks.

'You basically have a bunch of maskless people in a room,' the first employee said. 'And that's all a casino is — one huge room, with literally hundreds of people at a time, or more, inside.'

Fantasy Springs did not respond to a request for comment about the detailed statements made by its two employees.

Employees 'piece together' number of sick co-workers

Of the six outbreaks linked to casinos in Riverside County, county spokesman Jose Arballo Jr. said earlier this month that four casinos each had one outbreak, while a fifth casino had two. This week, he corrected that breakdown to six separate casinos with one outbreak each.

The first outbreak had nine associated cases; the second had eight; the third had four; and the fourth, fifth and sixth outbreaks each had 12 associated cases.

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Like other localized outbreaks, the county does not release the names of individual casinos. The county handles contact tracing to determine if there has been an outbreak.

'We would not depend on casinos, or any other business, to report their outbreaks to us,' Arballo said. 'We are the ones that do the investigating.'

Casinos have not been documented to be the biggest outbreak sources in Riverside County. For the period of July until early this month, grocery stores topped the list with 80 outbreaks, followed by retail stores with 71, warehouses with 46, restaurant and food with 33, and skilled trade and labor with 18.

All four casino employees who spoke with The Desert Sun did not know how many of their co-workers had tested positive for COVID-19 this year, or how many currently have the virus. Their casinos do not relay that information, they said, even in a general way that would not reveal an individual's name or personal medical information.

A new California law, AB685, requires employers to provide written notice to employees of potential exposures to COVID-19 at a workplace. That legislation takes effect on Jan. 1. It's unclear how the law could affect casinos on tribal land.

'I can't give you exact numbers of infected because we aren't told,' the first Fantasy Springs employee said. 'We just piece it together as people are (temporarily) taken off the schedule.'

Fantasy Springs tests all employees for coronavirus on a weekly basis, Michael Felci, public relations manager for the casino, said this month. But the two employees said information about positive cases doesn't trickle down to workers.

The second Fantasy Springs employee said workers merely want a sense of how widespread the virus is among employees, not individual names of those infected.

'We want to make decisions for ourselves if we think it's safe to work,' the employee said. 'And the lack of information just spreads rumors, which is worse than the actual information.'

A 'rowdier crowd' at Thunder Valley

About 30 miles outside Sacramento, Thunder Valley Casino Resort is more akin to 'a huge bar with games on the side' many nights of the week, one employee said. The facility is owned by the United Auburn Indian Community.

'The crowd is starting to get younger,' the employee said. 'They have no bars to go to, no clubs, no late-night restaurants to go hang out at.'

People from farther-flung areas, like San Francisco, Oakland, Fairfield and San Jose, have also started coming in, the employee said. The fact that guests are from out of town is evidenced by IDs and player cards.

'It's a rowdier crowd. It's a younger crowd,' the employee said. 'And every day that goes by right now they realize, 'Hey, nothing's going on, nothing else is open, come on over to Thunder Valley.'

A spokesperson for Thunder Valley maintained that the casino is 'confident in our ability to continue to operate in a safe manner.' The facility's health and safety protocols include increased cleaning, mask-wearing, reduced seating capacity and social distancing, the spokesperson said.

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The casino also conducts random testing of employees once a week, and pays those who test positive or have been exposed while they quarantine.

The Thunder Valley employee said he would be willing to go on unemployment, even though it would mean a personal financial hit, in order for the casino to close temporarily.

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'I would be okay as long as it doesn't last too long,' he said. 'Other people might feel like that wouldn't pay the bills for them.'

The second Fantasy Springs employee, for one, was ambivalent about wanting the casino to pause operations again. But the choice between potentially being exposed to coronavirus and employment is a difficult one.

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'I don't want to be there because I don't want to get sick,' the employee said. 'But I have to be there because I need my job.'

Amanda Ulrich covers Native American issues in Southern California for The Desert Sun. Contact her by email at amanda.ulrich@desertsun.com or Twitter at @AmandaCUlrich. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: As California tribal casinos stay open during shutdown, concerns grow about health, safety