We don't seem to gave these in New England, but whenever I travel on business, they seem to be everywhere.
Posted on 12/27/2014 7:00:57 AM PST by C19fan
When I was a kid, the paradox of choice didn't occur to me. I wasn't yet overwhelmed by the "tyranny" of too many options, nor stressed with decision making if more options were presented to me. That might be why I fell in love with buffets. Not only were they reserved for special family occasions (like the holidays or a birthday)—I could eat chicken nuggets beside slices of cantaloupe, or mac and cheese beside jello salad.
Buffets are now big businesses, particularly in Las Vegas. The buffets in Vegas are no longer the dollar bargains they once were in the late 1950s. They're fancy productions with Kobe beef and king crab legs that can cost over $50.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
We don't seem to gave these in New England, but whenever I travel on business, they seem to be everywhere.
Vegas buffets, and pretty much everything else, used to be cheap when the Mafia owned & ran the casinos and took their cut from the gambling. The Mafia were forced out, but are still there and now control pretty much everything else — construction, transportation, food suppliers, sanitation, etc.
free buffet, 50 cent one-deck blackjack, all gone....
With the Vegas Strip now a duopoly the need to use cheap food/buffets as a loss leader to get people inside the casino has disappeared.
I’ve been to LV starting from 1977 until recently for a least 50 times. I’ve stayed in a whole bunch of Casinos there up and down the strip. My job before I retired me visiting the area.
Buffets and all the amenities that were once cheap for the gambler fell prey to the family vacation gambit, where parents would bring the kiddies to ever increasing family attractions, supposedly to spend a lot of money in doing it.
It turned out, they were frugal and didn’t really gamble much IMO, and casinos started raising prices to compensate for the lost gambling revenue. In recent years with this failed family vacay theory, LV has started getting back to catering to gamblers.
IMO if you want a family vacation, go to Disney World or Sea World.
F4, Flame on....
The article glazes over the labor issue when talking about costs. It speaks of scientificly analyzing how chicken pot pies are presented, and 5 to 25% waste being normal... but besides food costs, AYCE buffet businesses count on one thing... cheap illegal labor cooking the food. It is far easier to just hire a family of Honduran cousins to work the kitchen turning chuck steak into “sirloin tips” than it is to get portioning or pricing exact. The $4 buffet and the $8 buffet have the same food... and the same illegals cooking it.
Sadly buffet- cousin cafeterias have pretty near disappeared. They were the mainstay of traveling families when I was young, though never got into the northeast.
Bunch of casinos on MS Gulf Coast and their buffets are overpriced (with a taxing slew o of other ways to pay through the nose). The only way to get your money’s worth is to eat way too much.
We have them here in NC. I assume you have stopped there for lunch?
Fair to middlin, imho. Fried chicken is a winner and the fried okra.
Steaks are so so. deserts are good. For $10-ish for the dinner buffet, not awful....
One of their first trips, my son, who sported a fine mustache at a young age and looked much older, got a strip club card handed to him when he lagged slightly behind his mother. He gave it to me later. Instant education there...Oh well...
For one who has will power and a plan, a good buffet such as Golden Corral's is a great way to have a nutritious and varied meal.
Understood. I’m not against family stuff, and there are still things families can do and have fun there, but it is not there for the frugal family, for sure. But they shouldn’t be complaining about the cost of Casino attractions.
They bet on increased family business, but they (casinos) bet wrong. They won’t make their nut on food courts, arcade rooms and buffets like that.
I took my 28 year old daughter (mother of three girls) who I’d promised to do so. I spent so much money on her with spas and saunas and what nots, I think could have bought a car. While she was doing all that, I gambled my butt off and drank. We both had a good time, and the casino delivered. That’s the kind of vacation that place is so equipped to handle.
I'd hop one of those cheap casino buses and my kid brother and I would go to one of those all you can eat places and spend hours playing nickle poker and visiting while we worked up an appetite to go back for seconds.
Those were the days as a 20 something kid when we could eat all we wanted, as much as we wanted and never gain a pound.
Wonder how many times Michell has been told you go home now.
A Golden Corral dinner for two with drinks and a two dollar tip, costs 30 bucks. Not a deal. You can get waited on at a local restaurant for a better price. BTW, I sometimes feel like a pig at a slop trough in those places although the salad bar is usually good.
That there is screaming funny.
The kid on the left leaning out of the way of her fat butt is a nice touch.
I love the place, always have.... I’m just not the type to go there with some kids and cheap it. There are better places for kids to have fun.
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