I judge their food by the cleanliness of the surroundings. If the dining room is untidy or their workmanship is very poor, I have to almost believe their kitchen and food prep practices are equally appalling. Good character is something that a person applies to every aspect of their life... even if it's painting dining room walls with some care versus sloppy application and peeling wallpaper.
The one Chinese buffet in my town presented itself with such nonsense it was almost entertaining. The kitchen door was a standard home-grade metal entry door with a semi-circular window at its top. It was left factory primer and the two pre-drilled holes for the knobs were filled with standard residential doorknobs-- two doorknobs, one atop the other!! Tacky backlit, large pictures of China's Yangtzee River had their AC line cords draping across the wall with ext. cords to boot! Some of the table's overhead hanging lamps had 100W floodlamps in them while others had standard lightbulbs! The chair rails on the walls were very sloppily painted, with drips running down for a few inches in a number of spots! The female waitress kept trying to remove our dinner plates even when it was obvious that we weren't finished with them. As a patron, I could hear arguing between the kitchen employees taking place. Upon leaving I noticed that 2/3rds of their front sign wasn't illuminated. It remained that way for a number of months beyond my visit. My final assumptions are they do the minimum required to meet local health dept. enforcement codes. What makes it worse is that the health dept. sends restaurants a notice of their proposed visit, allowing them time to correct any potential infractions. Often they pass inspection and the next day, it's back to the normal state of slop and neglect. I'm very wary of Chinese restaurants, but there are other greasy spoons in business that are equally guilty.