There is only one place to eat at Salt Lick Lodge--the dining room. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served here. Breakfast is always a buffet, with fresh fruits, juices, a good variety of breads, bacon, sausage, cold and hot cereals, and either already prepared scrambled eggs or eggs cooked to order. Depending on the number of people staying in the lodge, lunch and dinner are either served buffet or á la carte. On our first night at the lodge, there were about 30 people staying, so we had a buffet. The last night there were only eight guests, so lunch and dinner were á la carte, with two choices each for an appetizer and main course. There was always a separate vegetarian selection on offer.

I wouldn't call it fine dining, but the food here was always tasty and served piping hot. They had some good wines on the wine list as well. On our second to last night at the lodge, having not seen any elephants at the waterhole due to the rain, we had just sat down to dinner when, suddenly, out of the darkness, about 40 elephants came to drink at the waterhole just below the dining room. It was awesome. Everything in the dining room stopped. Many people ran downstairs to the lobby, where there is no window between you and the elephants. There is a barrier, but no window. I stayed at the window by our table upstairs and opened it quietly. I looked around the room and noticed that everyone was wholly engrossed in the elephants. Even the cooks had come out of the kitchen and stood watching, despite having seen this many times before. There was one baby elephant about a month or two old (so estimated one of the waiters) that couldn't quite get the water from his trunk into his mouth. He kept missing. All at once, the large elephant next to him (his mother, perhaps?) got some water in her trunk and squirted it into his mouth. It was charming. They stood drinking for about 5 or 6 minutes, then, as suddenly as they had arrived, they disappeared into the darkness again. Dinner service resumed shortly thereafter.