West 78th Street on a Saturday at half past eight is mostly empty parking and closed shutters, which is the exact hour the unlimited breakfast buffet at Tabla Eden Prairie is already running. Weekend breakfast in Eden Prairie usually means pancakes or a drive-thru, and this is neither.
It runs every Saturday and Sunday from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM at $13.95 vegetarian and $15.95 non-vegetarian, which is three hours before the restaurant opens for anything else. This guide covers what that buys you on a weekend morning, how the timing works, and the one thing still worth phoning ahead about.
Quick Summary
Tabla Modern Indian Restaurant at 16518 W 78th Street, Eden Prairie runs an unlimited breakfast buffet every Saturday and Sunday from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM. It is $13.95 for vegetarian and $15.95 for non-vegetarian. The kitchen opens three hours earlier than usual for it, and regular lunch service follows straight on at 11:00 AM.
The Unlimited Breakfast Buffet Eden Prairie Starts at Eight
Most of the week, Tabla Eden Prairie opens at 11:00 AM. On Saturday and Sunday the doors go up at 8:00 AM for the buffet, and that single fact is the whole reason this is worth knowing about.
- Saturday and Sunday only, no weekday breakfast service
- 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM, three hours
- Unlimited servings rather than a plated order
Turn up at 8:15 and you have the room largely to yourself. Turn up at 10:50 and you have ten minutes, which is not what unlimited is for.
The three hour window also means the eight o'clock slot and the ten o'clock slot are two different experiences. Early is quiet and the trays have just gone out. Later is busier, with more turnover and more of the room filled. Pick whichever of those you actually want rather than defaulting to the middle.
What Unlimited Actually Changes About Breakfast
The buffet format at Tabla solves a problem an à la carte breakfast menu does not, which is that nobody knows how hungry they are at eight in the morning until they have started.
You go back. That is the entire format, and it suits an Indian breakfast better than most cuisines because the components are built to be eaten in rounds rather than as one assembled plate.
It also solves the group problem. A table of six at breakfast is six different appetites, three of whom are not awake yet, and a buffet lets all six of them sort themselves out without a single menu being opened.
That matters more in Eden Prairie than it would downtown, because a weekend morning here usually involves driving somewhere as a group rather than wandering out alone. One stop that handles everybody is worth more than a better single dish somewhere else.
Come hungry. The format rewards it and the three hour window gives you room.
South Indian Mornings, and What Tabla Says Is On
Tabla describes this as a spread of South Indian breakfast favourites with unlimited servings, which is the category rather than the list.
So ask when you call. Two sensible questions:
- What is on the buffet this weekend, since a rotating spread is normal at this format
- Whether the lineup differs between the Saturday and the Sunday
The phone number is (651) 509-5561, and a thirty second call settles it better than any blog can.
What the Breakfast Buffet in Eden Prairie Costs
Tabla offers two simple pricing options for its breakfast buffet in Eden Prairie, so you can choose the one that works best for you without worrying about calculating the cost of each item.
| Unlimited breakfast buffet | Price | |
| Vegetarian | $13.95 | |
| Non-vegetarian | $15.95 |
Two dollars is the entire gap between them. That is a smaller spread than most places put between a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian option, and it means a mixed table is not doing arithmetic about who ordered what.
Four people at the vegetarian price is $55.80 for a three hour breakfast with unlimited servings. Four at the non-vegetarian price is $63.80.
Set against a plated breakfast elsewhere, the sum only works in your favour if you go back for a second round. Go back.
Breakfast Runs Straight Into Lunch
Here is the timing detail that makes a weekend morning at Tabla Eden Prairie unusually flexible.
The buffet finishes at 11:00 AM. The restaurant's regular weekend service starts at 11:00 AM. There is no gap.
| Saturday and Sunday | What is on | |
| 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM | Unlimited breakfast buffet | |
| 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM | Regular lunch service | |
| 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM | Kitchen closed | |
| 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM | Dinner service |
That means the kitchen runs continuously from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM on a Saturday, which is seven straight hours and a genuinely rare thing locally.
Tabla Eden Prairie also runs an unlimited Andhra meal from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM, priced separately for weekdays and weekends. If you somehow arrive at 10:45 AM and are still going at noon, the building has a plan for you.
Unlimited Is the House Habit, Not a One Off
The breakfast buffet is not a standalone experiment at this location. Tabla Eden Prairie runs the same idea at two different points of the day, which tells you something about how the kitchen is set up.
- Unlimited breakfast buffet, Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM
- Unlimited Andhra meal, 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM, with separate weekday and weekend pricing
Andhra cooking is the hotter, tamarind-and-chilli end of South Indian food, and running it as an unlimited lunch is a confident thing to do. A kitchen that can hold a hot buffet steady for three hours in the morning and then again for three hours at midday is a kitchen built around volume rather than plating.
The practical upshot for a weekend is that you can arrive at eight and leave at three without the kitchen ever closing on you. Very little else on W 78th Street works that way.
Whether the two overlap in style is worth asking about when you call, since a South Indian breakfast and an Andhra lunch are related but not the same thing.
Who the Weekend Breakfast Buffet Suits
Weekend breakfast is a different crowd to weekend dinner, and the Tabla buffet sorts itself into about four groups.
- Families with early risers, because an 8:00 AM start matches when small children are already awake and loud
- Anyone with a Saturday to get on with, who wants to eat properly and still have the day
- Groups who cannot agree, since a buffet ends that conversation before it starts
- People working through the weekend in the Eden Prairie Business Park, who want something more than a coffee before going in
If you are coming from the Eden Prairie Center Mall side or down from Minneapolis, the 8:00 AM opening is the part to plan around rather than the drive.
Finding Tabla Eden Prairie
Tabla Modern Indian Restaurant is at 16518 W 78th Street, Eden Prairie, MN 55346.
- Phone: (651) 509-5561
- Breakfast buffet: Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM
- Regular hours: 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM
The buffet is a dine-in format by nature, so this is a sit-down morning rather than a pickup one. Online ordering through the Tabla Eden Prairie ordering page covers the regular menu rather than the buffet.
Call ahead if you are bringing more than six people. A three hour window is generous, but a table for nine at 9 AM is still a table for nine.
Before the Chafing Dishes Come Down at Eleven
A row of brass lids lifted at ten past eight on a Saturday, with a nearly empty room and three hours in front of you, is a specific kind of weekend morning that West 78th Street does not otherwise offer. The unlimited breakfast buffet in Eden Prairie runs 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM every Saturday and Sunday at Tabla, at $13.95 vegetarian and $15.95 non-vegetarian, and the only thing left to decide is which alarm you set.
Go early on Saturday or Sunday, from 8:00 AM, and call Tabla Eden Prairie on (651) 509-5561 if you are bringing a crowd.
