Yami Buffet in Alexandria: $18.99 Lunch, Dinner Crab and Oysters, and Everything Else in the Old Red Lobster on Van Dorn

Yami Buffet is open at 555 S. Van Dorn Street in Alexandria, in the stone-fronted building that was a Red Lobster until August 2024. It is an all-you-can-eat Asian buffet: a sushi and sashimi station, hibachi, a barbecue line, dim sum, hot Chinese and Japanese dishes, a dessert bar with ice cream, and at dinner a seafood spread built around snow crab legs, whole blue crab and oysters on ice. Weekday lunch is $18.99 for adults. Dinner and all day on weekends is $29.99.

The restaurant soft-opened on December 16, 2025 and cut the ribbon with the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce on January 13, 2026. DC Spot ate there on a Friday in early September, photographed the price board and walked the line with staff. Here is what the money buys, what only comes out at dinner, and how the carry-out-by-the-pound counter works. @yamibuffetva on Instagram.

What it costs

Two fine-print rules from the board: kids pricing covers ages 0 to 10, and any child taller than 5 feet pays the adult price regardless of age. The board also warns that holiday pricing can change. Everything above is what DC Spot photographed on September 4; buffets adjust prices without much notice, so treat the board at the door as final.

What is on the buffet

The room does not look like a Northern Virginia buffet. The owners gutted the Red Lobster and rebuilt it around a long central line under a blue neon ring light, with lit signs for each station: sushi, hibachi, BBQ and the seafood bar. The line runs sushi and sashimi, a hibachi grill, barbecue, dim sum and steamed buns, hot Chinese and Japanese dishes, noodles, and a dessert bar with ice cream. Noodles joined the line in September and, as of October 7, pho is on it too. There is no ramen.

Lunch and dinner share most of that. The difference is the seafood bar, where the premium items come out after 3:30 p.m. and all weekend.

The dinner seafood spread

Dinner and weekend pricing unlocks the part most people are paying for: snow crab legs, whole steamed blue crab and oysters on ice, alongside the shrimp, crawfish, mussels and clams that run through the day. Staff told DC Spot the crab and oysters are dinner-only, which is why the weekday lunch price is $11 lower. Lobster appears at dinner in some form, but the restaurant had not confirmed how it is served or limited per person, so do not plan a visit around it.

Sushi and sashimi

The sushi station is all-you-can-eat at both lunch and dinner: nigiri, sashimi cut to order through the day, and trays of specialty rolls topped with torched salmon, tuna and sauces. For a $18.99 lunch, the sashimi alone is the reason this beats the strip-mall buffets along Route 1.

Hibachi, barbecue and the hot line

A hibachi cook grills to order at the end of the line. The barbecue section runs ribs and roasted meats, and the hot trays cover the Chinese buffet standards: beef with peppers, General Tso’s, fried shrimp, dumplings and steamed buns, with a dim sum corner. The dessert bar has cakes, fruit and an ice cream freezer. The food is not halal.

Kids, drinks and the house rules

Carry-out buffet by the pound

The board’s right-hand column is a carry-out menu priced per pound, and the tiers do not mix: pay the sashimi rate and the box is sashimi only. Regular, meaning chicken, steak and the hot line, is $7.99 a pound. Mix is $9.99 with no snow crab legs or lobster. Seafood is $12.99, sushi $14.99, sashimi $19.99 and snow crab legs $19.99 a pound. Lobster tail is $10 each. For a crab-leg dinner at home, the carry-out counter is the cheapest way to buy only crab.

From Red Lobster to a lobster buffet

Red Lobster closed this location on August 31, 2024, one of the chain’s bankruptcy-year closures, and the 7,900-square-foot building sat dark for a year. In November 2024, Good Charm LLC of Odenton, Maryland applied to the city for a special use permit to take it over as an Asian and Japanese restaurant, proposing a full interior gut, a 2,600-square-foot addition and seating growing from 292 to as many as 360. The city approved the permit that December, and in January 2025 it issued a commercial alteration permit valued at $550,000 for the conversion. ALXnow’s December 2024 report and the city’s January 2025 permit report have the paperwork.

The 360 seats were the proposal. DC Spot has not seen a final count, and a city occupancy record from December 2025 lists a lower figure, so take the dining room as large rather than as a specific number. What is not in dispute is the timeline: soft opening December 16, 2025, ribbon cutting January 13, 2026, per the Alexandria Brief and the Chamber.

It is the second large seafood buffet to open in Alexandria in 2026. UMI Premium Sushi & Seafood Buffet took over the old TGI Fridays on King Street in September with hot pot at the table. The two are a 10-minute drive apart and priced within a few dollars of each other, and this article does not rank them; UMI leans on hot pot and Yami on the room and the blue crab.

Location, parking and getting there

Yami Buffet is at 555 S. Van Dorn Street in the Van Dorn Street corridor of Alexandria’s West End, between Duke Street and the Beltway, with the same large surface lot the Red Lobster had. The Van Dorn Street Metro station on the Blue Line is a few minutes’ drive south; it is not a comfortable walk. Directions in Google Maps.

For the rest of what is new in Northern Virginia, see DC Spot’s openings coverage and this week’s Northern Virginia guide.

Frequently asked questions about Yami Buffet in Alexandria

Photographs by DC Spot, taken at Yami Buffet in Alexandria on September 4, 2026.

Published October 7, 2026. Prices, the lunch and dinner windows, the kids height and age rules, the soft-drink charge and the carry-out rates were read off Yami Buffet’s in-store price board on DC Spot’s September 4, 2026 visit, and staff confirmed what runs at lunch versus dinner. The restaurant confirmed on October 7 that pho is now on the line. Daily hours, phone and rating come from the restaurant’s Google Business listing. Opening dates come from the Alexandria Brief and the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce; the building history, applicant and renovation figures come from ALXnow’s December 2024 report and the City of Alexandria’s permit activity reports. The 360-seat figure was the owner’s proposal to the city, not a confirmed count. Lobster service at dinner varies and the restaurant had not confirmed a per-person policy, so it is not stated here. DC Spot visited as a paid collaboration for social content; the restaurant did not review this article.