24 ms·

The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets (2020)

• willsmith72 3y ago
  > To avoid these situations, some owners have updated their language to “All-you-can-eat within reason" That's just no fun, you lose all the upside. I hope they offer free doggy bags and takeaway for those who eat less than a reasonable amount
  • 1594932281 3y ago
    The buffet has to make money too, otherwise they wouldn't exist. If you want doggy bags/takeaway just eat at a regular restaurant and pay per item.
  • naremu 3y ago
    >A woman was booted from a Golden Corral for eating all the brownies, then attempting to smuggle home extras in her purse. This is the most hilarious tragedy of the commons I've ever heard of So I guess you gotta do what you gotta do
    • euroderf 3y ago
      I heard an AYCE story from a cruise ship between Finland and Sweden. Someone at a table of Germans (a rep for cheepnis) was seen tipping food from their plate into a handbag, obv for later consumption. So a waitress comes by and says "oh you'll want milk with that" and pours milk into the loaded bag.
  • JambalayaJim 3y ago
    All you can eat within reason is certainly lame. Charging customers for food left on the plate is quite reasonable though. I’m sure a lot gets left on the plate and the waste must be nauseating.
    • whycome 3y ago
      > Charging customers for food left on the plate is quite reasonable though. Is it though? What if the food quality is really low? As the article states, it's a place to get rid of some old food items. Do you think you have an obligation to eat it no matter what?
      • leetcrew 3y ago
        yes, it's totally reasonable. if you aren't sure you're going to like the food, start with a small taste. if you don't like any of the food, take the hit once and don't go back.
      • tekla 3y ago
        > Do you think you have an obligation to eat it no matter what? No, just pay for the waste.
      • nerdbert 3y ago
        The article doesn't say the buffet is a place to get rid of old food items, it says that buffets have worked out strategies to get incorporate their own old food items. Anyway, if you don't want to pay for wasting things you don't like, make your first plate a grazing/browsing sampler platter, then come back for the stuff you liked.
        • whycome 3y ago
          I think we just have a distinction here where the poster suggested charging for "food left on the plate" Even in a case of "sampling" and finding things you didn't want to finish, you'd be charged. There can be a reasonable alternative.
      • ska 3y ago
        > Do you think you have an obligation to eat it no matter what? Only if you put it on your plate ;)
  • sumtechguy 3y ago
    One guy I know got kicked because he showed up at noon and got kicked at 10PM when they wanted to close. He was mad that he could not stay and is mad 20 years later about it.
    • gosub100 3y ago
      probably the same guy that buys socks with a "lifetime guarantee" and returns them 20yr later. Some people just get off on free stuff.
      • sumtechguy 3y ago
        >Some people just get off on free stuff. That is an understatement with that guy. I have been tempted to over the years to make a web comic on this guy. The junk he does most normal people would never even think of.
      • askvictor 3y ago
        Lifetime guarantee is a shitty term. If they are saying it's for the lifetime of the product, then just be upfront and say what the expected lifetime of the product is, and guarantee it for that long.
    • toast0 3y ago
      I worked with a guy who would routinely get kicked out of AYCE restaurants and he seemed pretty cool with it. I think they'd usually kick him out after about an hour of dining.
    • justneedaname 3y ago
      Was it this guy: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiikaT-3f-CAxUFS0EAHfZQBxIQwqsBegQIDBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1kzb6uf0U0k&usg=AOvVaw2C2mUOmHdRgja-cykOiKwO&opi=89978449 https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web...
      • sumtechguy 3y ago
  • mcguire 3y ago
    Back in Austin, there was a small chain of Mongolian grill restaurants that offered AYCE dumplings with your meal that a friend and I often went to. My friend really liked the dumplings and once had about six refill plates of them. The next time we went, they no longer offered AYCE dumplings.
  • whartung 3y ago
    Red Lobster decided to make its "All you can eat Shrimp" a permanent menu item. Turns out it cost them dearly. It was designed as a promotional loss leader, which doesn't work full time. They eventually had to creep the price up from $20 to $25.
• alxjsn 3y ago
  As kids at a buffet we would all load up on way more food than we could eat. Naturally, we would just play with that food, mixing up all the things we could in cups and dare each other to take a sip. I bet we weren't the only ones who did that.
  • grecy 3y ago
    In most places now you have to pay extra for anything left on your plate. Rightly so, food waste is inexcusable when we have people going hungry. EDIT: With the planet being used up people are perfectly happy to just waste edible food. We're doomed.
    • bcrosby95 3y ago
      Hunger is a political problem. We could easily feed everyone in the world pretty cheaply.
      • supportengineer 3y ago
        Housing is a political problem. We could easily house everyone in the world pretty cheaply.
    • SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
      > Rightly so, food waste is inexcusable when we have people going hungry. How would that food in the buffet get to the hungry?
      • euniceee3 3y ago
        I smell a new startup! And really this would depend on a rich freeze drying industry. Imagine people driving around in trucks collecting all the uneaten scraps from children and adults plates. Sure we would not be able to handle to food safely, but we will be exporting it to countries that do not have as stringent laws on human consumption.
      • nerdbert 3y ago
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
  The other trick, especially at places like Golden Corral is the oily fried foods. Oily fried foods are very filling. You are limited in how much you can eat without feeling sick.
  • gwbas1c 3y ago
    Yeah, but who wants to go to a buffet to only eat fried foods? (I mean, I like an oily fried dish occasionally, but it's not something I'd go for at an all-you-can-eat place.) I suspect that if Golden Corral is struggling, and they are mostly serving oily fried foods, the problem isn't changing consumer preferences. The problem is that they aren't serving foods people like.
• pimlottc 3y ago
  I can’t read this in iOS Safari, the page keeps reloading/snapping back to the top when I try to scroll. Even dumps me out of reader mode, eventually.
  • danpalmer 3y ago
    Also broken in Chrome on macOS, the article renders briefly before everything disappears.
  • WD40forRust42 3y ago
    [dead]
• bell-cot 3y ago
  [January 2020] Originally on HN here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22151891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22151891 - with 268 comments From a quick search on those comments, I still don't see the obvious comparison between all-you-can-eat restaurant buffets and all-you-can-use internet bandwidth.
  • callalex 3y ago
    I don’t see how that’s an obvious comparison at all? Food has a per-unit cost, while data packets (which is what I think you actually meant, not bandwidth) have at most a marginal cost that is nearly zero once bandwidth has been built and allocated.
    • calderracrusade 3y ago
      Falsy. Torrenting and 4k streaming are the crab leg enthusiasts. Who's paying to expand the pipes to customers? Netflix refuses to, even though they were consuming a jaw dropping amount of bandwidth compared to all other services. And the cartels (Comcast etc) also refuse. So this has sometimes become an infrastructure problem where taxes etc are roped in. And not all packets are the same. As much as net neutrality is a good idea at 10,000 feet. When you look into details like 911 calls over Wifi shouldn't actually share priority with 4k VR porn.
      • callalex 3y ago
        > Who's paying to expand the pipes to customers? The customers are. Comcast is charging every one of their customers $80+ per month to connect to internet infrastructure that they update maybe once every 20 years. They have massive profit margins, this is public data. > And not all packets are the same. As much as net neutrality is a good idea at 10,000 feet. When you look into details like 911 calls over Wifi shouldn't actually share priority with 4k VR porn. QOS is entirely unrelated to charging money for data packets used and is already a solved problem with existing infrastructure and technology, so I don’t really understand why you brought up this straw man.
      • 3y ago
• JambalayaJim 3y ago
  The article mentions that 80% of all restaurant items will be eaten at home by 2030. This further cultural entrenchment of people into homebodies is really sad to me. Really hope this does not happen. I am assuming of course that the implication is that in-restaurant dining demand will shift to delivery, not that delivery will see some massive explosion over and above current restaurant food demand.
  • MattGaiser 3y ago
    At least for my family, especially as delivery packaging has improved, restaurants have become an inferior experience unless they are fairly high end. Grandparents used to take everyone out to dinner regularly. Now we eat at their house. They have more comfortable chairs at home. The environment is much quieter. You don’t have to wait for refills. They personally have better cutlery. We aren’t really the types to like being waited on. So unless we explicitly want something social from the restaurant or we need a table as we are travelling, the reasons for actually going in one have disappeared.
    • oceanplexian 3y ago
      The packaging might be better but it doesn’t solve the problem that the food arrives cold. Especially since the drivers pick up multiple deliveries and it can be 30-40 minutes before you get your food.
      • chipsrafferty 3y ago
        I've never had food arrive cold.
    • lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Above all, the probability of a restaurant being able to provide a meal with sufficient quality is too low. If my family gets together, we can bang out a multiple course guaranteed high quality meal in one hour, having fun while we do it. But a lot of that is due to cooking knowledge that the elders in the family pass down and refine over many, many decades.
• wiradikusuma 3y ago
  I regularly treat my 25-ish team to all-you-can-eat (AYCE) buffets (until recently, almost every week). What I observe, which could be country-specific, there are two kinds of "ideal" customers: 1. Family with kids. The kids don't eat much. 2. Couples. The female doesn't eat much. I honestly don't understand why they go to AYCE. I'm surprised to learn that in the US the ticket is $20. In Indonesia, with a minimum wage of only $320/mo, it's around that price too! ($10 to $20). Also in most AYCEs here you're limited to 90 minutes.
  • swores 3y ago
    > doesn't eat much. I honestly don't understand why they go to AYCE If someone is going and eating a small amount of a single dish then it makes no sense (unless, as in your example, they're going with someone else like a spouse in which case maybe the person/s they're going with like it enough for it to be worth going on average despite the person who isn't eating much). But I've known a handful of people with quite small appetites who enjoy AYCE restaurants because it lets them enjoy several of their favourite dishes and/or try several new dishes, even if only a few mouthfuls of each. It might still work out poor value in raw terms of calories per $, but compared to any other way of enjoying 5 different types of tasty food in the same meal it can be very good value in pleasure per $.
    • sumtechguy 3y ago
      I personally can only manage about 1 1/2 plates of food. Not stacked either. But I do enjoy going to them as like you point out the fun is having all these different things you can try with low risk.
  • mikestew 3y ago
    Couples. The female doesn't eat much. I honestly don't understand why they go to AYCE. Because a buffet isn't a competitive contest where you pay to see how much food you can stuff down your gullet for $20. No, you're paying to walk away satisfied. If that only takes one plate, well, you still "got your money's worth".
• michaelt 3y ago
  I once went to an all-you-can-eat buffet in Bulgaria with a mechanism I'd never seen before. The salads and starches and suchlike were all self-service, and waiters toured the room with big skewers of freshly roasted meat they'd carve right in front of you. But of course they'd only serve you a certain amount, and they weren't very fast to make a return visit. Thus limiting diners' consumption of the more expensive items, unless the diner was very patient. Of course, the prices were very fair and we all left well fed.
  • bitxbitxbitcoin 3y ago
    That sounds like a churrascaría aka Brazilian steakhouse/bbq to me! Did the waiters ask if you wanted meat or were there cards with a red side and a green side?
    • xyzzy123 3y ago
      I went to one of those once without understanding how the token worked. They kept coming again and again with the delicious things... I left so full I could barely walk. It's weird how while I could have turned "more grilled meat" down at any time but I didn't.
  • maximinus_thrax 3y ago
    I used to go with my team to Fogo de Chão in the before-fore times as they were right across from our building, and they applied the exact same strategy wrt to meat.
  • WalterBright 3y ago
    I've seen that in a few places, though I've never been to Bulgaria.
  • civilitty 3y ago
    In the US this is often the case at Brazilian steakhouses. They're usually higher end than regular buffets though because the meat is the main attraction and they're not stingy with it.
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• calderracrusade 3y ago
  My favorite is libertarians who use buffets as an example of why they don't pay taxes. "I don't pay for the salad bar, I get to eat steak, I can't choose where my taxes go". Except you literally do pay for all the wilting lettuce as you eat your steak. You don't get to tell them to un-order the lettuce and un-stock the salad bar just because it violates your NAP. There are many economics lessons to learn from buffets. And people tend to learn zero of them.
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• daltont 3y ago
  The imagery of the football players at the buffet brings back memories of my team going to the breakfast buffets at Shoney's the morning of Saturday games at noon. We didn't need lunch and the food was down before game time.
  • kjs3 3y ago
    There was a not-very-good Chinese buffet just off campus when I was at college, and religiously after Wednesday practice the whole rugby team would go. After 2 years or so of cleaning them out in about an hour, the owner banned us. :-)
• gnicholas 3y ago
  > They use larger than average serving spoons for things like potatoes, and smaller than average tongs for meats. Smart! The buffet my family has gone to the most, Sweet Tomatoes (RIP, COVID-19) didn't really even have meat. You could fish for chicken in the chicken noodle soup, and they had chili, but that was about it. > Even higher-end buffets, like the $98 brunch at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, employ these tactics: “They hide the truffles, the foie gras, and the oysters,” says Britt. “You literally can’t find them.” I've never had the $98 brunch, but their downstairs (less expensive) brunch buffet is a pretty good deal. The pricing for kids was especially reasonable when we ate there a few years ago. But nothing will beat their pricing on our honeymoon — they comped us brunch for the whole week!
  • matteoraso 3y ago
    >Sweet Tomatoes (RIP, COVID-19) didn't really even have meat. Can't speak to that particular brand, but a lot of buffets will have high-end meats that are hidden from plain sight. I went to a dinky local buffet not too long ago, and I found a prime rib roast on my second pass through. What they did was place the carving station in a hole in the wall so it wasn't sticking out, and then staffed the station with an extremely quiet man. Since your focus is on the buffet line, you completely miss him and his expensive meat (and also dim sum, and maybe a few other things. IDK, I just went straight for the prime rib).
• bitxbitxbitcoin 3y ago
  Little ethnic buffets like the one mentioned at the end are my favorite types of hole in the walls. At that point, it’s about trying a little bit of everything which if you ordered one of everything would be very expensive in comparison with the buffet entry price.
• dazc 3y ago
  I worked for a hotel company once that did all you can eat breakfast buffets and lot of stuff was reheated day after day, the fruit salad was best avoided too. I don't know if this is standard but I avoid such places like the plague.
  • lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I value free hotel breakfasts at zero for this reason, or whatever the contents of the sealed food items. I prefer Embassy Suites though, where I can see them crack eggs.
    • whartung 3y ago
      > I prefer Embassy Suites though, where I can see them crack eggs. As I understand it, it's somewhat of an open secret that many of the eggs are powdered. I don't know if that's true. They may well also be "boil in a bag", which somewhat makes more sense when you see the texture and the somewhat strange "shapes" that they come out in, if they don't stir and break them. Heck, maybe they're boil in a bag powdered eggs. I was at a hotel in/near Miami, FL, and they opened their morning buffet to the local first responder community. I thought that was rather generous of them.
  • kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Stuff has like a couple hour window under heat otherwise you have some explaining to do for the health inspector. You can tip them anonymously fwiw.
• jzb 3y ago
  I grew up in a small town in Missouri in the 70s and 80s. I literally had never had any form of Chinese food until I was about 17, and I loved it. So a friend and I would go into "the city" on the regular for a Chinese buffet -- on average once a week during the summer. I'm pretty sure the owner winced every time we pulled into the parking lot in my friend's heavily used Ford Escort. They had the best Crab Rangoon, and we would knock back between 3-5 heavily loaded plates, each. (Not only Crab Rangoon.) And then heaping bowls of self-serve ice cream. The restaurant is long gone now -- it folded sometime after I moved out of state (so I don't think it was our feasting that did it) -- which is a shame. I can't put away food the way I did as a teen, and I wish I could go back and have a few much more reasonably sized meals to help restore balance. In my limited defense we always tipped heavily even though we were poor teenagers with part-time amusement park wages.
  • CoastalCoder 3y ago
    > They had the best Crab Rangoon In late 1970's or early 1980's (I think), Super Stop & Shop's salad bar had a "seafood salad" with imitation crab meat. So I'm wondering if your "crab" Rangoon was real crab, or something much cheaper.
    • 1123581321 3y ago
      Crab rangoon is almost always imitation. Sometimes just cream cheese. I happily eat a dozen of them when the neighborhood Laotian church does its fundraiser, no matter what’s in them. Perfect snack.
      • stronglikedan 3y ago
        Most of the places around here use the canned crab meat, but very little of it usually.
    • Beijinger 3y ago
      Well, most Sushi places use fake crab meat (kani). And to be honest, it is not what makes sushi good or bad. I had below average sushi with real crab meat. Just for the guys with allergies: It contains eggs and wheat.
• post_break 3y ago
  One time my dad and his friend went to a pizza hut buffet. His friend was a prankster so he proceeded to pour the entire thing of dressing into the salad bowl, pick it up and take it to his seat. He said the manager came over and was pissed and told him he better eat all of it. He ate it all, much to the managers disapproval. We're talking the huge bowl, like 2 feet wide.
  • mjevans 3y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if the 'greens' were the most expensive part of the buffet. All the shelf stable stuff is super easy to do in bulk, but greens go bad so quickly.
    • wkat4242 3y ago
      Yep this is why McDonald's salads cost more than a burger.
      • kjkjadksj 3y ago
        Surprisingly their lettuce is a free topping
  • rurp 3y ago
    The manager was probably annoyed because they knew that other customers would get mad about the salad not being available. Someone taking the entire giant bowl probably isn't in their normal workflow and will take some time to work around.
    • post_break 3y ago
      I'm not justifying it, if I were the manager I'd be pissed too haha.
• ryanjshaw 3y ago
  Somewhat related - I have enjoyed watching Kitchen Nightmares and Hotel Hell, but I've always wondered about the economics of restaurants and whether Ramsay's "local and fresh" is really viable or not, and under which conditions. Anybody have recommendations that go into this?
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• ManBeardPc 3y ago
  I avoid all-you-can-eats, the quality is usually much worse and even if there is some good stuff everyone plunders that tray and it takes ages to refill. On special occasions the price is even higher, easily reaching 50€+. Why would I do that if there are several restaurants nearby where I get way better quality for less, can choose exactly what I want and still can barely eat it all? I don't understand the appeal.
  • standardUser 3y ago
    The appeal is eating little bits of lots of different things. I order the same way at restaurants - almost always multiple small dishes and rarely an entrée. If so, it's shared. Also, having been to some high end buffets, these can sometimes be disappointing but they can also be truly amazing. I ate at a seafood buffet at a fancy hotel in Guangzhou once that blew my mind.
• mathgradthrow 3y ago
  They miss the most important facet. Costco can only make so many chickens in their rotisserie. The downside is bounded. The best bang for your buck options at a buffet still come in a bucket, but there no obligation for the restaurant to keep that bucket full, regardless of demand. It's a bit like playing poker in vegas. You're competing with the other gamblers, not the house.
  • gosub100 3y ago
    If a buffet consistently runs out of items they wont be popular for long. However, I think you've stumbled on an interesting point. I wonder if they could squeeze more profit by charging 2 rates: "prime time" and "after hours". If the buffet was $30 at prime-time, you would be promised that nothing is run-out. Let's say that window runs from 11:45am - 1:15pm. Then sell economy-class half-price tickets that are still AYCE, but some of the good stuff might be picked clean or have limited quantity. This comes with the assumptions that 1) food waste should be minimized (i.e. can't be sold the next day, or less ideal to serve it at dinner hour if it was cooked for lunch), 2) the $15 customer would almost never pay $30, or very little overlap.
    • ska 3y ago
      > If a buffet consistently runs out of items they wont be popular for long. All items? Sure. But enforced scarcity on the more expensive items is almost a given.
    • chipsrafferty 3y ago
      Places do do this. Lunch buffet has less options, is cheaper. Dinner buffet (basic) vs premium dinner buffet + crab legs and other premium seafood
• somethoughts 3y ago
  In this post covid and high labor cost era - it'd be interesting if there will be any innovative company that attempts a Japanese conveyor belt sushi (i.e. pay $N dollars per dish of pre-plated food) setup but with Western style appetizers/Tapas.
  • wkat4242 3y ago
    We have some of these in Barcelona. They're great actually. It's 12€ for 4 plates or 15€ unlimited with a drink, and really good quality overall.
• lukev 3y ago
  I love articles like this. I’d happily read a book with each chapter breaking down the unit economics of a given type of business. Also, I can’t help but recount an anecdote from the last time I was at an all-you-can-eat place… conveyor-belt sushi with my kids. A pair of guys came in and sat at the table next to us. They said a loud ironic prayer begging indulgence for “the sins we are about to commit” as they sat down… then proceeded to unwrap all the fish rolls, eating the contents as sashimi and discarding the rice and veggies on a tray on their table. By the time we left there was probably 8 lbs of rice on the tray… can’t believe they weren’t kicked out.
  • ww520 3y ago
    Deliberate food wasters are despicable.
    • stronglikedan 3y ago
      It's rice. It's not like they're wasting anything significant, like the meat of an animal that gave its life. But still, the restaurant should have charged them for it at least, like every other all you can eat sushi place would have.
      • 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 3y ago
        "like the meat of an animal that gave its life." - that's generally not how it works.
        • standardUser 3y ago
          Outside of some restaurants in South Korea, we generally only eat dead animals.
          • progbits 3y ago
            I assume the GP takes issue with the word "gave", as it was not given but taken.
• porridgeraisin 3y ago
  In India all you can eat pizza is pretty popular. You pay ~350 INR per person for non-vegetarian and ~250-300 INR per person for vegetarian. It's pretty good. The trick they use is a large fizzy complimentary drink up front, which reduces your hunger for the first set of pizzas which take a bit to arrive.
  • euroderf 3y ago
    Yup avoid the fizzy stuff. And also I've noticed in the US that the salad dressings can have noticeable sugar content.
• zwieback 3y ago
  Planet Money (best podcast of all times) did an episode on this a while back: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197954459 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197954459
• foreigner 3y ago
  My tiny, 5 foot tall, 90 pound mother _loved_ buffets. When she walked in you could almost see the owners doing a cash-money victory dance.
• Kon-Peki 3y ago
  I worked at an all-you-can-eat buffet as a teenager in the 1990s. Our big fill-you-up-cheap item was pizza. The ingredient cost for pizza is ridiculously low, even for above-average quality ingredients. An entire pizza was likely $0.50 or so, depending on toppings. The restaurant oven was this giant gas-fired thing with 5 or 6 circular, rotating stone surfaces with each set to its own temperature. The pizza stone was set somewhere between 550 and 600° F. My main job was making the pizza, and they were good. Definitely better than anything you could get at a Pizza Hut or Dominos or Little Caesars. People would even ask for custom pizzas, and management didn't care. You put it out on the buffet line and wave at them so they know it's ready. Of course, while they're waiting they aren't eating other things... The restaurant also had a little game room with arcade machines that spit out tickets for cheap prizes. Kids would have a slice or two of pizza and then run off to play games, making their visits especially profitable.
  • xanderlewis 3y ago
    > all-you-can-eat > pizza > cheap > arcade machines This all sounds too much like heaven to be true.
    • Obscurity4340 3y ago
      Honestly, the simplest pleasures are often not inherently expensive
    • wing-_-nuts 3y ago
      In college me and a roommate would go to a cici's pizza on sunday. We usually got there right before the tball groups came in. So you'd see these 2 20 somethings in line ahead of an entire team of kids, and they would just watch us with concern and awe as we piled our plates high, lol. My roommate could eat so much pizza I'm sure some of those kids were worried they'd run out.
    • SoftTalker 3y ago
      Sounds like Chuck-E-Cheese.
• trevyn 3y ago
  ProTip: Many university cafeterias are all-you-can-eat and open to the public.
• bilsbie 3y ago
  What’s the best way to find all you can eat places? I don’t think there are any in my area so I want to make a road trip.
• francisofascii 3y ago
  > starches like potatoes might only cost the restaurant $0.30 per serving, compared to $2.25 per serving for steak. What you need is a hybrid buffet, in which each person gets a certain limit of meat, but unlimited of all the cheaper food.
  • nerdbert 3y ago
    There were, and probably still are, restaurants where you pay for the meat item and then get access to the unlimited "salad" bar which includes a wide range of other stuff.
  • whartung 3y ago
    Souplantation was like this. You could go through the salad bar, the soup, and bread line as much as you want. But on the salad bar, most of the actual proteins (I should say non-vegetable proteins -- all the garbanzos you can eat!) were an extra unit charge. The "secret" was that they always had Chicken Noodle Soup, so folks would go there and simply pick out all the chicken, leaving the broth and noodles. Which was, honestly, pretty annoying. Souplantation gave up with COVID. They literally threw in the towel, and shut the entire chain down.
• conductr 3y ago
  I have a masochistic interest in opening a restaurant of some sort one day and one thing I'm pretty adamant about is owning my property. I live in an area where that is feasible and obviously it's not in many areas/cities. But, seeing that rent is 3x profit on this validates my back of envelope math. I don't want to be working for a landlord that's going to be constantly upping my rent. It's obviously a bit more capital intensive but it's also an asset that can be sold if the business doesn't work out. All the businesses I observe come and go it's usually something about how they opened a hip restaurant in a trendy neighborhood and 5-10 years later it's fully gentrified and the rent causes them to close shop. Did they make enough profit to offset the cost of the leasehold improvement investment? I'm guessing not in that short amount of time. Meanwhile, the businesses that are family owned and have been around for 50+ years have no rent expenses and can weather some ups and downs more gracefully. They also get to have a reasonable profit to live on.
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• Animats 3y ago
  I miss Fresh Choice, the mostly-vegetarian buffet. They went broke because the buffet itself was a lose and they were making money on the extras.[1] [1] https://www.mashed.com/1374299/chain-restaurant-buffets-disappeared/ https://www.mashed.com/1374299/chain-restaurant-buffets-disa...
• charlieyu1 3y ago
  It is pretty big in Asia. All you can eat sushi/sashimi is everywhere in Hong Kong, not that expensive, great experience for everyone. When I moved to UK I realised the difference. I can only eat like maybe 70% compared to an average Westerner so it is always much more expensive for me.
• SamuelAdams 3y ago
  I wonder if those economics also apply to software, ie “unlimited data storage” service providers.
• lvl102 3y ago
  My local Chinese restaurant stop doing their lunch and Sunday buffets during COVID. I asked the owner whether she would bring it back after the pandemic and she basically told me she makes 3-4x the profit off of take outs alone. And she’d cut dining-in too if she could. Restaurant business dramatically changed as a result of pandemic.
• ExMachina73 3y ago
  In most restaurants, the food itself is a loss leader. The real money is in booze and drinks. Why most diners back east have a bar. All the money is made in the bar drinks.
  • ska 3y ago
    > In most restaurants, the food itself is a loss leader. Food cost isn't typically a loss leader, but (American sense) entrees are often aimed to be around neutral because people judge mainly on that when they peruse menus. But that's neutral including loss. Desserts margins are similar to booze, often. Appetizers make them money, as do sides and upsells.
  • askvictor 3y ago
    I think that really depends on the place and the time. This used to be the case in Australia, but less so now. Particularly for pubs/bars - they'd have very cheap meals to get you in and get you drinking, but now the meals as are expensive as restaurants. Times have changed and more people are there for the food and not for the drinks, so the business models change.
• fuzzfactor 3y ago
  It's a good feeling when you check into a nice hotel and see a notice informing you about the "Free Breakfast Buffet". I can only imagine it would induce a little snickering from Warren or the late Jimmy though . . .
• mckn1ght 3y ago
  I can't believe they didn't mention crab legs. This is my earliest memory of AYCE, sitting at the table for what felt like an eternity while my father went through plate after plate of snow crab legs. They also are the thing that ties most disparate AYCE places together: I've seen them at the Chinese ones, as well as Continental-style. I don't often find myself at AYCE places, but when I do, I always enjoy watching people line up and jockey for position for the next batch of fresh crab legs coming out of the kitchen. Given how much they cost at markets, this has got to be a higher cost than the highest cost they're accounting for of steak.
• 55555 3y ago
  In any sector with a 10% margin, there’s businesses that are losing money and businesses that are taking home 30% margins.
• spencerchubb 3y ago
  I love Golden Corral but when I took my snobbish Italian friend, he took one bite of the food and just walked out.
• cobertos 3y ago
  I miss having on-demand cheap college cafeteria food. It's hard to find places that have the same slightly above average food for bargain prices. IKEA's food is the closest I've found. Food courts at malls generally are no different from just going to a fast food place, which have all raised prices as of recently. Costco is cheap but their options/taste isn't great. I've been bumming off a friend's college meal plan recently and it's so good. Pizza, pasta, a few really good vegetarian options, same with the allergy-free section. If only I was allowed to pay what he pays for that food.
  • kjkjadksj 3y ago
    There are a lot of apps/rewards/loyalty programs now. Its kind of like two different economies for some businesses: those who use these deals and those who subsidize the others. E.g. at mcdonalds a big mac is still ~$3, but only if you use their app and use the buy 1 get 1 deal on the big mac. Taco bell is also good about having some high calorie per dollar foods on their value menu. There’s a $2 burrito that comes out to like 600 calories. You could always swap out the meat for black beans if you want it a little healthier perhaps.
• xyst 3y ago
  It’s basically like how insurance companies determine premiums for people but this is on a much smaller scale. Personally, I liked going to buffets as a kid. But as an adult, I find them repulsive. In the back of my mind, instead of choosing a well balanced meal. I am instead motivated to just get the priciest items. Forget rice. Forget veggies. Protein. Protein. Protein. Steak, lobster, fish. Of course I regret it the night of or the following day as it exits my system
  • PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    You have provided a compelling argument for not doing as you do. Thanks.
• cliffccc 3y ago
  For ordinary people, eating a buffet to "enough money" may mean greater losses.
• vmurthy 3y ago
  Didn’t see anyone mention Indian buffets in India. In my hometown of Bengaluru , many restaurants offer buffets. Weightage is given to starters ( I’m vegetarian so I tend to eat paneer ones ). Desserts are a few Indian sweets and lots of cheap ice cream which seems in line with the economics mentioned. If you eat protein heavy starters it’s unlikely you’ll want to have more food for mains.
• eru 3y ago
  > Buffets often break even on food and eke out a profit by minimizing the cost of labor. I'm not sure what's that supposed to mean. Addition and subtraction are commutative, aren't they?
• ricardobayes 3y ago
  Kind of explains why there are no buffets in Spain. Spanish people eat very healthily during the week but when they eat out, it's gloves off. Meat with meat.
• mannyv 3y ago
  In the Philippines, buffets are "eat all you can," which is not quite the same as the US' "all you can eat."
• globular-toast 3y ago
  Ah, the all you can eat buffet, where you're either obese and/or borderline diabetic, or you're paying over the odds for shitty food.
• helsinkiandrew 3y ago
  Also discussed 2 years ago (268 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22151891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22151891
• DebtDeflation 3y ago
  I'll never forget the Simpson's episode where Homer goes to one of these places. They kicked him out when he was still eating long after closing time, and he sued them. "The sign says 'All You Can Eat' and I can still eat more."
  • fishyjoe 3y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2dmfnSarDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2dmfnSarDI Marge's courtroom testimony is my favorite part
• autoexec 3y ago
  > Waste reduction is a key focus of any successful buffet and a frequent tactic is reusing food. I guess that includes hiding food that wouldn't pass inspection https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-golden-corral-dumpster-food-video-goes-viral-20130708-story.html https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-golden-corral-d...
• NautilusWave 3y ago
  This article just makes me think of the industrialized agriculture and how it contributes to rashes of foodborne illness. But also I'm hungry, and it's really not helping.