I guess they’re just unable to compete with Hmart. What a shame. I frankly haven’t been to any of the Chinese markets in the area since HMart came to town - I wonder how they’re doing.
It can be not busy from time to time, but I think you may have stopped by a less-than-popular time. It is not usually that quiet. Yes, the cheap buffet is usually the busiest of all – mostly because it is cheap.
I have seen it not very busy like you have, but I have seen it in reasonably ok population. It has never been super busy, but I think you are just unlucky that you have seen it as dead quiet.
I go there on average about once a month. I kind of alternate between Ranch 99 and HMart. HMart is definitely better. Hmart’s meat, vegetable, and seafood are way better. The only thing with Ranch 99 is that it is focused on more Chinese stuff and has more variety of packaged and frozen products. I am done with Ranch 99’s cheap buffet; it’s utter garbage with no signs of improvement. Although the King’s village stall is quite good and my son is obsessed with the Rolled Ice Cream at Penang.
Anyway, I would go to Ranch 99 when i just want to pick up a few items and avoid the crowd at Hmart. The parking spaces are getting more and more limited at Hmart with all the restaurants and businesses opening up and doing pretty well it seems - Saturday night can get quite crowded over there (Mango Mango definitely worth a try though; it’s an Asian dessert place).
Another thing worth mentioning is that there is a bakery call SunMerry (it’s a taiwanese franchise) in the same strip mall as Ranch 99; I found that to be a good alternative to Paris Baguette.