Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck, Brian out there. Jerry just left
Speaker 1: to go get some food. We're guessing at a buffet,
Speaker 1: although probably not. I don't think she actually is going
Speaker 1: to a buffet, Chuck. I can actually hear Jerry laughing
Speaker 1: for the first I can't do. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's going to make it in the final lightit but
Speaker 1: it was creepy and otherworldly, disembodied Jerry laugh kind of sinister,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like we're in the same room again. Almost, man,
Speaker 1: almost someday less than a year. I'm thinking less than
Speaker 1: a year. Yeah, let's just call it that. And we're
Speaker 1: talking about hitting the road again, huh eventually. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if things go great, maybe next fall. But if they don't,
Speaker 1: then uh, the next year we talk about stuff way
Speaker 1: or yeah, I mean those theaters are going to be jamming.
Speaker 1: That's that's the big thought is that when things truly
Speaker 1: get better, everyone and their people have never even performed live.
Speaker 1: We're going to book theaters to get up on stage.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a lot of fun. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of pent up energy to be released right
Speaker 1: in our direction. Why talk about an easy crowd, man,
Speaker 1: I can't wait for that. So, speaking of talking about things, chuck,
Speaker 1: great segue, because it turns out we're talking about something today,
Speaker 1: and specifically we're talking about Buffet's. That's right, Jimmy, buffet
Speaker 1: Do you have good I hadn't even thought about that,
Speaker 1: good joke? Uh, do you have good memories of buffets
Speaker 1: from when you were a kid or an adult? We
Speaker 1: certainly went to Buffet's more than a little bit growing up,
Speaker 1: and it kind of jibed with everything, um that our
Speaker 1: household believed in, which was value for the dollar. Sure. Um,
Speaker 1: I learned from my dad that you should eat until
Speaker 1: you were physically uncomfortable and then eat a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Oh that's good. I didn't have good food. Uh, examples
Speaker 1: from my dad. And uh, you know, my mom has
Speaker 1: been known to stuff a roll or two in her purse. No, sure, dude,
Speaker 1: she's she falls under the section titled problematic customers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think, boy, I hope she didn't hear that.
Speaker 1: She's gonna be so mad. But it was usually under
Speaker 1: the guys of like, well, I don't feel like I
Speaker 1: came in that hungry, so I didn't eat as much
Speaker 1: as I actually do. Awesome, Well, I'll make you feel
Speaker 1: a little bit better. My mom, I don't think ever
Speaker 1: once in her entire life bought candy at a movie theater.
Speaker 1: She would always bring in those bag of Bolt candies
Speaker 1: and her oversized giant nineteen eighties purse. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: was always great, like she always had the good candy.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you wanted like snow caps or something,
Speaker 1: so well, I will say this, I haven't been to
Speaker 1: a book a I was really trying to figure out
Speaker 1: the last time and I don't know, man, it like
Speaker 1: it literally may have been twenty years ago in Las
Speaker 1: Vegas or something, a town that I do not enjoy
Speaker 1: going to. But I think maybe I can't think of
Speaker 1: any time I used to go to a this sort
Speaker 1: of super Asian buffet where when my sister and her
Speaker 1: husband lived in North Carolina with them, and it was
Speaker 1: one of those weird ones that had like this great
Speaker 1: Chinese food but then like pasta and seafood and it
Speaker 1: was but not like in the in the Asian style
Speaker 1: of seafood, right right, Yeah, that's stuff. That's a typical
Speaker 1: Chinese buffet. They have lots of Chinese food, but they
Speaker 1: have everything, and they'll have like eight different buffets all
Speaker 1: in one. Is it like that? Uh? Yeah? But actually
Speaker 1: now I do remember the last time I went to
Speaker 1: a buffet. I did go to one of those KFC buffets,
Speaker 1: but it had to have been more than fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: Was that the one in Valdosta? That's the only one
Speaker 1: I know about now? And I remember I literally went
Speaker 1: because I saw it on the sign said the buffet,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I've heard of these, I gotta
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah. Well it's still around. There's one on
Speaker 1: exit eighteen on I seventy five and Valdosta, Georgia. There's
Speaker 1: a bona fide KFC buffet. I can personally attest to
Speaker 1: its existence. When was the last time you went to
Speaker 1: a buffet? I hadn't thought about it, and I was
Speaker 1: thinking about it while you were talking. Um, I was
Speaker 1: listening to you as well. But UM, do you remember
Speaker 1: when we did that that UM live catastrophe in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, yeah yeah. So the next formed at
Speaker 1: a school in front of like nineteen people, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and like ten of them had to be there for
Speaker 1: like course credit. I think, um the the the next day.
Speaker 1: So there's airplanes fly in and out of Erie a
Speaker 1: couple of times a week, and um the the the
Speaker 1: flight that I happened to have didn't leave to late
Speaker 1: the next afternoon. So I went and saw um Oh
Speaker 1: Cure for Wellness I think was the movie I saw
Speaker 1: in the theater, and then I went and ate it
Speaker 1: one of their local buffets, and Erie stayed on an
Speaker 1: extra day. Huh, an extra two thirds of a day,
Speaker 1: very very long two thirds. I think I drove and
Speaker 1: flew out of another town. You did, you did, and
Speaker 1: I hadn't. I didn't have that foresight. But um but
Speaker 1: before that, I have to say, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: buffets that I went to sometimes was pana Har. You
Speaker 1: remember Panahar over on Beuford Highway. Sure late pana Har.
Speaker 1: It just shut down, I believe in the last few months.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever went there. Was it Indian buffet.
Speaker 1: It was Bangladeshi, you know, like the average American would
Speaker 1: just be like, oh, good Indian food, but it was
Speaker 1: just magical. There was something that they put in the
Speaker 1: food that made everything really good. But they would do
Speaker 1: a lunch buffet and it was fantastic. I bet you
Speaker 1: would pay for that, though, I would pay a lot,
Speaker 1: especially now that it's gone under. Oh, I see what
Speaker 1: you mean. You know what I mean. No, they had
Speaker 1: very good food. It was well made too. It didn't
Speaker 1: just taste good, it was like well well made, like
Speaker 1: they had some hundred and fifty year old grandmother back
Speaker 1: in the kitchen overseeing things. Yeah. I don't mean that
Speaker 1: it would be made bad. But Indian food is the
Speaker 1: love and vain of my existence. I love it so much,
Speaker 1: but it Yeah, it doesn't get to me that bad.
Speaker 1: But that's uh, that's part and parcel with buffet's though, Chuck,
Speaker 1: it might not just be Indian food. It could just
Speaker 1: be the fact that it's a buffet, because buffets make
Speaker 1: you super duper sick. All right. So should we talk
Speaker 1: about the smorgas board, Yeah, because that's where the whole
Speaker 1: thing originated. Yeah, I was. I did not know the
Speaker 1: origin of that word, So it's kind of cool. In
Speaker 1: Scandinavia in the thirteenth century, they had Smorgese boards, but
Speaker 1: it was the Smortgage boards and brand Vince boards, And
Speaker 1: it sounds a little more like if you were to
Speaker 1: put out like a nice meat and cheese tray with
Speaker 1: some butter and spreads, uh, maybe little smoked fish. But
Speaker 1: the key here is vodka on that brandvet's board, right,
Speaker 1: So that's what everybody was there for. But they would
Speaker 1: lay out these spreads for like travelers who came to visit,
Speaker 1: guests who came over long distances, and they'd be like, here,
Speaker 1: restore yourself with these, you know, the spread of light food.
Speaker 1: And over time the Swede said, you know, this is
Speaker 1: a really great idea, let's just make this the meal.
Speaker 1: So from what I can tell, it began as the
Speaker 1: bron Vins board and then later became the Smorgas Board.
Speaker 1: And in addition to the fact that it was like
Speaker 1: this awesome spread of great food that everybody loved, um,
Speaker 1: the aristocracy like the fact that um, the the staff
Speaker 1: would just be attending to the Smorgas board. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: be waiting on the guests. So if you kind of
Speaker 1: wanted more privacy or whatever at your dinner party, a
Speaker 1: Smorgas board was the way to go. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Keep him out of our hair food. I think it
Speaker 1: was a little more of a refined experience and just
Speaker 1: go like stuff your face with everything. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: still a big difference between a Swedish Smorgas board in
Speaker 1: an American buffet. Yeah, like very well laid out on
Speaker 1: like a round table in a specific order that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily just an order to make you fill up on
Speaker 1: cheap food first, which we'll get to later, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds kind of cool. And then in the nineteen
Speaker 1: twelve Stockholm Olympic Games, I think the rest of the
Speaker 1: world saw the Smorgas board and it was like, we
Speaker 1: need to bring a little piece of that back home
Speaker 1: to the good old USA. Yeah, they're like you served
Speaker 1: yourself from a table in the same room where you
Speaker 1: sit down and eat. This is amazing, And there is
Speaker 1: something amazing about it that I still, despite researching and
Speaker 1: writing this whole thing, I cannot put my finger on
Speaker 1: what it is. But there's just something about buffets or
Speaker 1: smorgas sports, right, So something did capture the world's attention
Speaker 1: at that nineteen twelve Olympics, and then in America in particular,
Speaker 1: the Smorgas board really got a boost at the ninety
Speaker 1: nine World It's fair, Um, that's the one where that
Speaker 1: big Globe is over in Flushing, Queens, right, Oh sure, yeah.
Speaker 1: Um so at that one there was a Swedish pavilion
Speaker 1: and they had a restaurant there called the Three Crowns Restaurant,
Speaker 1: and they put out a real deal Schmorges board and
Speaker 1: the Americans just went bonkers for it. And it, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, they said, just give us a
Speaker 1: couple of years, we're going to figure out how to
Speaker 1: turn this into basically the most American thing anyone's ever
Speaker 1: invented in the history of food service. Right. So from
Speaker 1: there we moved to Las Vegas, which is you know,
Speaker 1: you can't talk about buffets without talking about Vegas, of course.
Speaker 1: And um, early, early on what would become the Las
Speaker 1: Vegas Strip, before Benny Siegel even was dreaming of the Flamingo,
Speaker 1: was Bugsy Bugsy Seagull, right, yeah, Benny's his real name,
Speaker 1: Buggsy was. I was wondering that the way you said it,
Speaker 1: I've been correcting you lately and just putting my foot
Speaker 1: in my mouth every time. So I came at it
Speaker 1: a little more trepidacious. Leave them before. He's definitely more
Speaker 1: trepidaciously than the second Jeweyah correction oh, did you get
Speaker 1: the super cut of that from the basically exact same
Speaker 1: conversation we already had years before. No, I did see
Speaker 1: people mention it les. You gotta hear that. Please? Were
Speaker 1: you forward that to me? I gotta yeah, I'll have
Speaker 1: to dig it off. It was good stuff. I want
Speaker 1: to give him his due to uh so her McDonald
Speaker 1: was this guy's name. He was a publicist and he
Speaker 1: was kind of one of the very first people to
Speaker 1: start working on would become the Vegas Strip. And he's
Speaker 1: given credit as the guy that came up with the
Speaker 1: his L Rancho Vegas or I guess where he worked
Speaker 1: at the l Rancho, which is the first hotel there
Speaker 1: on the strip what would become the Las Vegas Buffet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the legend has that that one night in the
Speaker 1: late forties, he was um hungry and he went to
Speaker 1: the kitchen and came back with a bunch of cold
Speaker 1: cuts and cheese. Is kind of laid him out to
Speaker 1: make himself a sandwich, and some of the gamblers who
Speaker 1: were there late at night, we're like, hey, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of hungry, can I get some of that? And he thought, huh,
Speaker 1: this is not a bad idea. If I lay out
Speaker 1: some food that isn't a sit down meal that the
Speaker 1: gamblers can serve themselves, they're going to spend more time
Speaker 1: here gambling. So maybe I will create what's now known
Speaker 1: as the American Buffet. In Las Vegas. The cheap all
Speaker 1: you can eat twenty four hour Buffet had its origins
Speaker 1: from that little Eureka moment. Yeah, the Midnight chuck Wagon
Speaker 1: was the name of the the first deal I guess
Speaker 1: at a dollar, and they became known for the twenty
Speaker 1: four hour version, which was the Bucaru Buffet, which was
Speaker 1: a buck It was a dollar the Buckaroo, of course,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, it's it's I mean it's everyone kind
Speaker 1: of knows the history of Vegas and like cheap food,
Speaker 1: cheap or free food, and cheaper free drinks and fairly
Speaker 1: cheaper free rooms. That was sort of the old days.
Speaker 1: It's not a cheap, cheap town to visit these days.
Speaker 1: I think they still run a lot of deals and
Speaker 1: stuff like that because gambling is where they make, you know,
Speaker 1: where they want to make most of their money. But
Speaker 1: they did wise up at some point and they were like, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: we're not just gonna keep giving away steak dinners and stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: people started coming for the shows and stuff like that
Speaker 1: and weren't necessarily gambling time was if you went to Vegas,
Speaker 1: you went and emptied your pockets there so they could
Speaker 1: afford to lose money on like the buffet or whatever.
Speaker 1: But the Vegas all all you can eat, all night
Speaker 1: buffet that started in the late forties and became synonymous
Speaker 1: with the town actually kind of lent a bit of
Speaker 1: um cash to buffets in general and in the United States.
Speaker 1: We'll see like they kind of spread from there. Started
Speaker 1: in in Scandinavia, moved to the World's Fair nine, then
Speaker 1: to Vegas, and then from Vegas, it just kind of
Speaker 1: spread like um just spider web of I don't like,
Speaker 1: I love like apple turnover all a mode. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna say something like a five
Speaker 1: gallon pan of hollandaise sauce. Oh that that is so
Speaker 1: much better than what I said. Man, that was that
Speaker 1: was amazing. Chuck. All right, let's take a break and
Speaker 1: we're gonna dive into the Golden age. We love golden ages,
Speaker 1: the golden age of the buffet right after this, Chuck. Okay,
Speaker 1: So there's long been in America restaurants that have been
Speaker 1: like all you can eat blank for blank amount of money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we used to do that something, sure. I mean like,
Speaker 1: did you ever read a Buffalo's Cafe for wings? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: did they have an all you can eat Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it was it was like all you can eat ings
Speaker 1: for like say eight or nine or ten dollars or whatever. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we went to a place called Rio Vista on Memorial Drive,
Speaker 1: which was it was like all you can eat catfish
Speaker 1: on Tuesday night. So that kind of thing, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's still very much around. And that apparently is
Speaker 1: where the whole the whole idea behind buffets finds its
Speaker 1: other footing, it's other origin in the United States. Was
Speaker 1: this these kind of deals that were meant to kind
Speaker 1: of generate new business, Like you would go try out
Speaker 1: a restaurant. Um, there's this really great site called Restauranting
Speaker 1: through History, terrible name, but a great site. And um,
Speaker 1: the person who runs the site found this ad for
Speaker 1: the City Restaurant in Elyra, Ohio, Yeah, from and it
Speaker 1: was all you can eat oyster stew for cents. So
Speaker 1: it had been around for a little while, but when
Speaker 1: the depression rolled around all of a sudden, people were like, oh,
Speaker 1: all you can eat sounds kind of good because I
Speaker 1: haven't eaten in a week and a half and I've
Speaker 1: got this whole family who's starving too, so let's go
Speaker 1: try this. And they did. Yeah, that surprised me. I
Speaker 1: was surprised to see them turn up in the depression, Uh,
Speaker 1: just because of value and stuff. But you know, food
Speaker 1: prices were low, so I guess they could afford to
Speaker 1: charge people fifties or sixty cents or something for all
Speaker 1: they well, not all they care to eat. That wasn't
Speaker 1: really a thing yet, but people did love it. And
Speaker 1: apparently um desserts during the depression era, buffets was really
Speaker 1: where they because I guess that was just a rare,
Speaker 1: rare treat, so they would really load up on the sweets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they definitely, they definitely would. But it it taught people
Speaker 1: who ran restaurants like, wait a minute, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: if you order people or if you offer people, you
Speaker 1: know what, all they can eat of something like some
Speaker 1: people do like over indulge, but a lot of people
Speaker 1: just eat like a normal amount, which is weird. And
Speaker 1: that kind of gave this like, um confidence, I guess
Speaker 1: to restaurant tours to kind of start to move into
Speaker 1: the like changing their restaurant entirely over to and all
Speaker 1: you can eat set up. Yeah. So, you know, we
Speaker 1: go down to the fifties and sixties where legit Chain
Speaker 1: started opening that were you know, very cheap or you know,
Speaker 1: let's just say inexpensive buffets. And this is where you
Speaker 1: start to see um, you know, mac and cheese and
Speaker 1: carb heavy meals and fried chicken and salads like jello,
Speaker 1: you know, the little kind of festive looking jello mold
Speaker 1: salads that you're not quite sure what's inside. And then
Speaker 1: Chain said, you know what, this morgue board word is
Speaker 1: kind of weird, Like, I don't think they were using
Speaker 1: the word buffet at all at that point where they
Speaker 1: id started around the same time in like the fifties
Speaker 1: or sixties, okay, but they were using Smorguese boards sometimes
Speaker 1: or smorgy or other variations like smore get or smorga.
Speaker 1: And this is when and uh, they kind of started
Speaker 1: leaning away from um, these nice round tables of food
Speaker 1: to the long sort of cattle style. Yeah. Yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said that Vegas buffets kind of
Speaker 1: gave buffets everywhere else in the United States is kind
Speaker 1: of cash and part of that was presentation, and that
Speaker 1: as more and more chains kind of grew and took
Speaker 1: over the whole buffet style food. Um. Yeah, they did
Speaker 1: away with the presentation part really quick and just to
Speaker 1: like eat your slop. You know. It was more about
Speaker 1: that they'd shove you into lying that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But the idea, the idea, um, like you said, uh,
Speaker 1: Smorgese board was kind of taking off. It seems to
Speaker 1: have been like out west and in the Midwest, morege
Speaker 1: and all that, but then elsewhere buffet started to come
Speaker 1: to be used. So by about the fifties or the sixties,
Speaker 1: you had Smorges and buffet's proliferating across the United States
Speaker 1: like a pan of apple turnover all the mode yeah uh.
Speaker 1: And that word buffet, you know, comes from the furniture piece,
Speaker 1: the French furniture piece. For like we call them sideboards
Speaker 1: sometimes it's what we have a couple in our house
Speaker 1: from Emily's grandparents. Um, but people call those buffets as well.
Speaker 1: We call them bedspreads. I called them comforters or afghan
Speaker 1: remember those growing up? Did you have afghans in the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, they were always too small. It was like,
Speaker 1: why did you make this the itchiest way to keep
Speaker 1: warm of all time? Probably besides like a wool blanket.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. I'm not big on afghans. I like things
Speaker 1: to be bigger than that, so softer. I don't know
Speaker 1: about small afghans. What's going on there? They were always
Speaker 1: just slightly too small. Wouldn't cover from chin to foot? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: he never has there been an afghan that has covered
Speaker 1: from chinda foot successfully, even if you do the little
Speaker 1: diagonal trick. Yes, I've even tried that, and then it's
Speaker 1: like too short on the sides, so like my love
Speaker 1: handles will be cold. Oh no, get at. The thing
Speaker 1: that I remember growing up with is what comes Next,
Speaker 1: which was um actually a lot of these, but the
Speaker 1: Western steakhouse sort of buffet, which was actually one of them,
Speaker 1: was started by Dan Blocker Of who played Hoss Cartwright
Speaker 1: on Bonanza. He started the Ponderosa Steakhouse, which I must
Speaker 1: have known that back then because we went to ponder
Speaker 1: Rosa's and Bonanza was the big one. The big one
Speaker 1: that we went to Ponderosa was the buffet. I grew
Speaker 1: up with two up in Toledo. Yeah, I love those bonanzas.
Speaker 1: It's sort of I mean the same company, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, I'm not sure what the
Speaker 1: difference was. We didn't have a Bonanza, Like I said,
Speaker 1: it was just Toledo. But um, we did have that Ponderosa.
Speaker 1: It was wonderful. What about Sizzler. Sissler we didn't have,
Speaker 1: But I was aware. You know, when you think of
Speaker 1: like the steakhouse theme buffets, aware comes to mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was since aware we ever went to Sissler. That
Speaker 1: seems like a cut above if I remember correctly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it always at the very least positioned itself
Speaker 1: if not, was actually a cut above. There's also one
Speaker 1: called Chuck a Rama, but I've never heard of. And
Speaker 1: then Golden Corral everybody knows about. Um it's been around
Speaker 1: since the seventies, and Golden Corral is like the last
Speaker 1: man standing. From what I can tell, it's actually doing
Speaker 1: rather well. I think there was still one over by
Speaker 1: the North and cab Moth. I'm not mistaken. They're everywhere.
Speaker 1: They're still building them now. Yeah, well, but they're not
Speaker 1: everywhere around where I live. I got you, what about
Speaker 1: did you ever go to Western Sizzland because it was
Speaker 1: really it was established in AUGUSTUS, so I would guess
Speaker 1: you you had been there before. Yeah, I went to
Speaker 1: Western Sizzling and then the other big ones uh and
Speaker 1: they are in fact next on the list or when
Speaker 1: they went sort of uh farmy homespun. Um. There was
Speaker 1: an old country buffet near where I lived, and there
Speaker 1: were also Hometown Buffet's Ryan's Grill and then Bakery and Buffet,
Speaker 1: all owned by Ovation Brands, which was just pumping out
Speaker 1: garbage food to buffets all over the country. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've me said that the worst case of food poisoning
Speaker 1: she ever had was the first time she ever tried
Speaker 1: a buffet and it was O Ryan's and she just
Speaker 1: she can't even say that word, Like she can't even
Speaker 1: be friends with somebody named Ryan now because she'll just
Speaker 1: get sick at the thought of that. Oh man, she
Speaker 1: can't even watch Ryan Gosling or Ryan dal No. I
Speaker 1: have to call her, I have to call him Gosling
Speaker 1: if I call him anything else. I like and was
Speaker 1: a big fan and we as a family as well
Speaker 1: of the um of I guess ethnic buffets with we
Speaker 1: didn't do many Mexican ones, but there were definitely Mexican.
Speaker 1: There was definitely one we went to sometimes on Sunday
Speaker 1: morning that had I think it was kind of even
Speaker 1: before they started calling brunch. But I can't remember the
Speaker 1: name of it. But it had a really nice taco
Speaker 1: station and they would make you like a fahita station
Speaker 1: and that stuff was so good where you don't remember
Speaker 1: the name of it. No, man, I can't remember the name.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was Poncho's. I don't think it
Speaker 1: was a chain I got you. Weah. We went to
Speaker 1: Chee Cheese when I was a kid. I don't remember
Speaker 1: being a buffet. Strangely, I don't. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was either. Yeah, that's where I
Speaker 1: was introduced to the Chimmy Chonga. I'd love to eat
Speaker 1: and I'd love to say, but Chee Cheese was like
Speaker 1: the Olive Garden of Mexican restaurant, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I didn't really go to those that much, um,
Speaker 1: but we did go to Mongolian Barbecue in the eighties.
Speaker 1: There was one another memorial drive near where I live
Speaker 1: that you know, that's where you pick out all your
Speaker 1: and I can't imagine the health codes because they literally
Speaker 1: had like raw meat that you would pick out and
Speaker 1: then hand to a person to cook. Yeah with your
Speaker 1: just your your your bare hands cupped filled with withdraw meat.
Speaker 1: Was There's a chain called who Hut. It's a Mongolian grill.
Speaker 1: It's like make your own stir fry buffet. And they
Speaker 1: just their newcomers. They've been around for about twenty years
Speaker 1: and they're actually doing rather well as far as buffets
Speaker 1: are going. Look good for them. Um. There's also there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of history that I found on that
Speaker 1: restauranting through History site, um Jan Whittaker's site. Um, she
Speaker 1: turned up a couple of gems that I just thought
Speaker 1: her you have to mention, um, like that whole Smorgese
Speaker 1: board thing when people were trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to Americanize it. Um, there was a hilarious collision between
Speaker 1: ethnicities when like uh an Asian proprietor took over like
Speaker 1: a smorgas Border opened a Smorga sport where you would
Speaker 1: have like gong Le's Smorgy or Johnny Homs Chuck Wagon
Speaker 1: Hoffbrow and Smorgy. I just love that. I think that's
Speaker 1: the cutest thing. Ever, I'll bet Johnny hom and Gongli
Speaker 1: were very happy, welcoming gentleman, and uh, pizza buffet's was
Speaker 1: something we did a lot as well. There was one
Speaker 1: called Village in Pizza near Us and I guess it
Speaker 1: was could be a kin to like a Shaky's, who
Speaker 1: I think is kind of the king of the of
Speaker 1: the pizza buffet. But boy, those pizza buffets I remember
Speaker 1: it was like like you always had a plan at
Speaker 1: any buffet, like a game plan. You didn't just like
Speaker 1: casually eat you. He had a game plan. But those
Speaker 1: pizza buffets, I remember people sitting around the restaurant with
Speaker 1: like one eye on when they're bringing those pies out,
Speaker 1: and it was people would attack it. They would swarm, swarm. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pizza huts ted buffets for a very long time and
Speaker 1: they still do from what I understand. But those it's
Speaker 1: the dessert pizzas that are like the bomb. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think keep pizza buffets going. And there was always the
Speaker 1: sad pizza too that no one wanted it just sat
Speaker 1: and sat. Right. If you're looking for a pizza buffet,
Speaker 1: they have CC's now they're kind of all over the place.
Speaker 1: I don't there's this. I think we all need a
Speaker 1: pizza buffet once in a while, chuck. But there was
Speaker 1: this site called mashed, which I hadn't heard of, but
Speaker 1: they had a lot of good stuff that I ran
Speaker 1: across for this article. Um, but they were rating buffets
Speaker 1: and they got to see seeds and they said, do
Speaker 1: you like eating cardboard? No, then stay away from cecis.
Speaker 1: And it was like, that's me. The funny thing is
Speaker 1: now as an adult, like I go to New York
Speaker 1: and like I'll grab a slice and that is the meal,
Speaker 1: all right, and not like I would like nine more
Speaker 1: of these and then a dessert one. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but every once in a while it's I don't know,
Speaker 1: just going berserk on food. It's kind of there's something
Speaker 1: about it. Maybe that's the thing that I couldn't put
Speaker 1: my finger on going berserk on food is the allure
Speaker 1: of of buffets. I liked this in high school. My
Speaker 1: hack for school launch was the salad buffet. Well actually
Speaker 1: wasn't a buffet, but it was to build your own
Speaker 1: salad that you might as well have. You know, you
Speaker 1: didn't need to go back because I would I would
Speaker 1: build these huge salads just stacked with like ham and
Speaker 1: turkey and cheese and bacon bits and very little lettuce
Speaker 1: was going on in their croutons and then drench it
Speaker 1: with ranch dressing. And that was a really good value
Speaker 1: at my high school cafeteria. That's awesome. Yeah, once you
Speaker 1: drenched drench it with ranch, it's it's like goodbye nutritional value. Hello.
Speaker 1: But salad buffet's were really big in the eighties and nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were, you know, people were trying to eat a
Speaker 1: little better, and so I think in night the two
Speaker 1: big salad buffet competitors, Super Salad and soup Plantation, and
Speaker 1: soup Plantation also was known as Sweet Tomatoes for a while.
Speaker 1: They were both founded in seventy eight, and they had
Speaker 1: a pretty good run up until the nineties, and then
Speaker 1: people were like, I don't think this is actually very healthy,
Speaker 1: and they said it's never been, and uh, they started
Speaker 1: to kind of go away a little bit. Little my
Speaker 1: favorite name of all time of those style of restaurants.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember let Us Surprise You. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: they were good. I I loved let us Surprise You.
Speaker 1: Actually to all of those Super Salad, super Plantation, I
Speaker 1: mean like there, I like the idea behind them, but
Speaker 1: they're you know, not not actually healthy. No, of course not.
Speaker 1: It's it's like I said, my salad was probably worse
Speaker 1: for you or worse for me than whatever was in
Speaker 1: the regular lunch and Big Mac. And speaking of Big Max,
Speaker 1: it turns out, Chuck, I read this really great article
Speaker 1: on Oh I can't remember, maybe Eater, but it was
Speaker 1: like this, the history of fast food buffets, and there's
Speaker 1: like this whole subculture where all they want to do
Speaker 1: is talk about fast food buffets. That's it. And there's
Speaker 1: like legendary ones that may or may not have existed,
Speaker 1: like McDonald's supposedly had a buffet for a little while,
Speaker 1: or Um Taco Bell. But the impression that I have
Speaker 1: is that that might have been like a low um
Speaker 1: franchise e trying something outsily. Yeah, just completely lost their
Speaker 1: s and they're like serving serving McDonald's or Tago Bell
Speaker 1: buffet style. Well, I was a Wendy's Superbar adherent. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I've told the story before. For newspaper staff,
Speaker 1: you're allowed to check out and go quote unquote sell
Speaker 1: ads or take pictures or whatever. So all the newspaper
Speaker 1: staff would always hit the superbar near the high school
Speaker 1: and eat pasta and a little Mexican taco salad. And
Speaker 1: my favorite thing was they used I don't remember, they
Speaker 1: use their hamburger buns. Is the bread, and they would
Speaker 1: griddle those hamburger buns, yes, garlic bread. Yeah. It was
Speaker 1: so good, It really was. Yeah, because like their their
Speaker 1: stuff was legit, Like even their little salad bar was good.
Speaker 1: But they had like a big potato bar and the
Speaker 1: whole thing was and it was like three bucks or
Speaker 1: something like that. Although the key here is it is
Speaker 1: not all you can eat. And from what I gathered,
Speaker 1: that was one of the downfalls of the windows. I
Speaker 1: don't believe it was. I believe one big, fat trip
Speaker 1: much as you could fit. That's what that was. That's
Speaker 1: my memory, though I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that's what it was. And I also saw somewhere that
Speaker 1: that was one of the reasons why it went away,
Speaker 1: is because they just had so much trouble keeping people
Speaker 1: from going back for seconds or thirds or whatever. That
Speaker 1: also explains now what, looking back, why I always had
Speaker 1: uh pasta and chelato sauce and a baked potato right
Speaker 1: exactly because you're like, where can I put this? So
Speaker 1: there never you want to take a one more break
Speaker 1: and then come back and talk about how buffets make
Speaker 1: any money at all, let's do it. Okay, we'll be
Speaker 1: right back, Okay, Chuck. So there's this thing like the
Speaker 1: fact that if if you're a Las Vegas buffet and
Speaker 1: you're offering things for cheap, you're actually losing money. It
Speaker 1: kind of shows you. It points out that buffets have
Speaker 1: a really narrow profit margin. Apparently restaurants have, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the narrowest profit margins of any industry. But
Speaker 1: then the buffets are the narrowest of the narrow, like
Speaker 1: they really have trouble making money, and so um. There's
Speaker 1: actually a an entire economic theory called adverse selection that
Speaker 1: predicts that buffets just shouldn't exist, and yet they do
Speaker 1: in the face of economic theory. Yeah, so this is interesting.
Speaker 1: Adverse selection basically is, uh, if you have a case
Speaker 1: where a buyer has more information than the seller does,
Speaker 1: you're going to be in a distinct advantage is the buyer.
Speaker 1: So the seller is going to set their price at
Speaker 1: a price point it's uh low enough to attract the
Speaker 1: worst customer they can get high enough to not uh
Speaker 1: to high enough to chase away the really good customer,
Speaker 1: which I guess in this case would be a really
Speaker 1: heavy eater. So the the good customer to the buffet
Speaker 1: low capacity and the low capacity eater. And it basically
Speaker 1: means you're you're not going to be in business very long, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're gonna set your price high enough that, um,
Speaker 1: the low capacity eater is gonna be like, this isn't
Speaker 1: worth it. I don't eat enough to justify paying this.
Speaker 1: But you're it's going to be low enough so that
Speaker 1: a high capacity eater with a huge empty belly is
Speaker 1: going to say, oh, that's a great value. So you're
Speaker 1: going to attract nothing but high capacity eaters and your
Speaker 1: your Yeah, your business is just gonna go away. And
Speaker 1: yet buffets still managed to persist despite that very logical
Speaker 1: economic theory predicting that they shouldn't. And it turns out
Speaker 1: there when you start digging around in the business of
Speaker 1: buffets that there's a lot of like tricks that they
Speaker 1: use the you don't find elsewhere in the restaurant industry
Speaker 1: to kind of protect that very razor thin profit margin
Speaker 1: anyway they possibly can. Yeah, and you know, Obviously, if
Speaker 1: you're looking at a buffet and how they made or
Speaker 1: make money, Um, the family unit is a really big
Speaker 1: deal because and I know it's it's very sort of
Speaker 1: lazy and reductive to paint it in such a kind
Speaker 1: of a King of queensyan way, but that's how buffet
Speaker 1: runners and managers and restaurateurs looked at it. Was You've
Speaker 1: got this big hoss of a father that's like, I
Speaker 1: need to eat at a buffet tonight, and this like
Speaker 1: diminutive little wife is just like, well I don't eat
Speaker 1: very much, and the kids are like, well I love
Speaker 1: the dessert. So the only one in that family is
Speaker 1: that's really putting a hurting on the buffet is is
Speaker 1: the dad. Kevin James. Kevin James. And again, this is
Speaker 1: not how we look at things. It is super lazy,
Speaker 1: but if you're talking about the buffet industry, that's exactly
Speaker 1: how they looked at it. Yeah, I mean, like all
Speaker 1: of those cliches about like oh gosh, here comes a
Speaker 1: football team or something like that, that's that's actually like
Speaker 1: part of the buffet industry. They worry about stuff like yeah,
Speaker 1: so um some ways that they try to balance out
Speaker 1: that there find that balance between low capacity and high
Speaker 1: capacity eaters UM or to to kind of protect their
Speaker 1: their profit margin in the face of you know, more
Speaker 1: high capacity eaters than low capacity eaters. In one way,
Speaker 1: they'll just straight up kind of fly in the face
Speaker 1: of established all you can eat ethos, which is all
Speaker 1: you can eat, no strings attached. Um. And some restaurants say,
Speaker 1: you know what, now, we're not going to do that. UM,
Speaker 1: We're going to basically use nudge uh nudge psychology to
Speaker 1: kind of get you to to um, not be wasteful,
Speaker 1: to be a little more mindful, because it's kind of
Speaker 1: part and parcel with going to a buffet is being like,
Speaker 1: I don't have to use my brain at all for
Speaker 1: the next hour that I'm going to this buffet. And
Speaker 1: so they'll they'll try to do things like, um, they'll
Speaker 1: say like take all you want, eat all you take.
Speaker 1: Is a very common sign you'll see. And in fact,
Speaker 1: Chuck um I mentioned this, uh, this restaurant called Grandpa's
Speaker 1: down in Cocoa, Florida. It's a it's in a train,
Speaker 1: which is just that in and of itself, is worth
Speaker 1: going to write. But they have a salad bar and
Speaker 1: on their salad bar has signed that says if if
Speaker 1: you waste food, or if the waiter or server determines
Speaker 1: you have wasted food from your trip to the salad
Speaker 1: bar you haven't eaten enough, um, you'll be charged two dollars.
Speaker 1: Is a two dollar charge for wasting food from the
Speaker 1: salad bar. And I can't tell you how many um
Speaker 1: arguments you mean. And I have seen between like old
Speaker 1: couples about whether or not that they're going to get
Speaker 1: charged that two dollars because the husband or the wife
Speaker 1: didn't eat enough of the salad from the salad bar.
Speaker 1: We know how that ends. It's it's like, is it
Speaker 1: buffet's weren't gluttonous enough? That end with some old man saying,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, watch this, shoving whatever food is on that
Speaker 1: plate down his throat right in front of the manager.
Speaker 1: YEA many other places to do that too. I've heard
Speaker 1: plenty of places when I was a kid that supposedly,
Speaker 1: like the rumor is, I don't think I ever saw
Speaker 1: it happen, but they would charge you for wasted food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they actually do. I think it's
Speaker 1: just a threat. Yeah, you know, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a mandatory mask policy. They're not going to put you
Speaker 1: in jail for not wearing a mask, but the fact
Speaker 1: that it exists is going to make more people go
Speaker 1: ahead and do it than otherwise would. Yeah. Another trick
Speaker 1: they um will lay on you is to not clear
Speaker 1: your plates away, because I guess they there is real
Speaker 1: research that says that people are um not prone to
Speaker 1: go up for more food if there's like three sort
Speaker 1: of half eaten, dirty plates sitting and sitting in front
Speaker 1: of them. I guess that the shame accumulation keeps them
Speaker 1: from coming back. Yeah, that happened to me. I realized
Speaker 1: I've been a target of that kind of harassment now
Speaker 1: that I've done this research, Okay, I had no idea,
Speaker 1: and now I'm a little bitter about it. I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier about the front loading it with carbs, and that
Speaker 1: is true. They have done studies that show that. Um,
Speaker 1: I think Cornell University. I don't know why they did this,
Speaker 1: but they have a huge like food like food industry program,
Speaker 1: the national leader in it. All Right, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: said that, because I thought it was a strange thing
Speaker 1: to study. But people in a in a buffet line
Speaker 1: they found got the first thing in the line no
Speaker 1: matter what it was. And so the idea is that
Speaker 1: you put like if it's a Chinese buffet, that's where
Speaker 1: you would put the fried rice or old country buffet
Speaker 1: is that's where you put the mashed potatoes and gravy maybe,
Speaker 1: and you know, you want them to fill up on
Speaker 1: that stuff and by the time they get to the
Speaker 1: the real high dollar amount, which is like the bagged
Speaker 1: beef that's we're gonna talk about in a minute, that
Speaker 1: you're not as hungry. Yeah, that that same study, I
Speaker 1: believe found that two thirds of the stuff that that
Speaker 1: is on the plate after you've made you know, year
Speaker 1: rounds on the buffet where the first things that you encountered,
Speaker 1: like you just go up and you start behaving in
Speaker 1: this really predictable way. So you know, buffets protect their
Speaker 1: their bottom line by catering to that. Um. They also
Speaker 1: like if you ever noticed, um, when you go to
Speaker 1: a buffet, it's like five nine, but then when you
Speaker 1: go to check out, it's like, because your coke, your
Speaker 1: fountain coke, was five dollars um, that fountain coke costs
Speaker 1: them next and nothing. So to make five dollars on
Speaker 1: it is a really good way to boost their profits
Speaker 1: where they are otherwise losing it, you know, hemorrhaging money
Speaker 1: that we drink water. Yeah, so I've read some stuff
Speaker 1: about people getting kicked out of buffets, which we'll talk
Speaker 1: about in a second. But um, some buffets are like,
Speaker 1: we don't serve tap water, Like sorry, you have to
Speaker 1: pay for your for a drink, no matter what it is.
Speaker 1: They also have to their price point with pricing it
Speaker 1: too low so that people don't think they're eating garbage food.
Speaker 1: So they've done studies on that. And a pizza buffet
Speaker 1: for four dollars, I think people who paid the four
Speaker 1: dollars considered the food eleven percent less good or desirable
Speaker 1: than people that paid literally twice as much, paid eight dollars,
Speaker 1: even though the food was the same. Yeah, double digit difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I guess I might as well say
Speaker 1: it here. I worked on a job as a food stylist,
Speaker 1: not as the food stylist, but when you're a p
Speaker 1: a sometimes they would just say, hey, food styling needs
Speaker 1: you for this whole job. Just go be one of them.
Speaker 1: And I did that for a job on a an
Speaker 1: unnamed major chain. Um, you know, it's sort of one
Speaker 1: of those bar restaurants, is all I'll say. And literally
Speaker 1: every single thing on the menu comes bagged and most
Speaker 1: of it comes pre cooked. Yeah, that's why like a
Speaker 1: lot of restaurants will say we're a scrap at kitchen
Speaker 1: because they're saying, like, we don't use Cisco, Like we
Speaker 1: actually use ingredients that you would use at home. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so many restaurants just use Cisco or some other
Speaker 1: food service where all that stuff is pre cooked by
Speaker 1: Cisco and it just shows up in bags and your
Speaker 1: job as the cook is to put it together and
Speaker 1: heat it up, and then that's what you do. That's
Speaker 1: actually one way that buffets save money is by not
Speaker 1: having to employ actual chefs or cooks. And they also
Speaker 1: have to employ far fewer weight staff because you know,
Speaker 1: they're just coming over to make sure your drink is
Speaker 1: refilled or something like that. They need way fewer people
Speaker 1: because you're serving yourself, which saves them money. And then
Speaker 1: there's one other trick that kind of falls in a
Speaker 1: little bit with them that you know, take all you want,
Speaker 1: eat all you take kind of sign. And apparently Sizzler
Speaker 1: led the charge on this that whole all you can
Speaker 1: eat idea if you stop and think about it. It
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like a challenge some like, you know,
Speaker 1: the reptilian part of your brain takes it that way. Um.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, yeah, and so Sizzler said, well, we're
Speaker 1: going to change that to All you Care to Eat,
Speaker 1: which is much more genteel and is much less of
Speaker 1: a it's much less hostile or aggressive sounding. Um. And
Speaker 1: it never took off, obviously, but you can still see that.
Speaker 1: Every once in a while you'll see from like a
Speaker 1: buffet sign or something like then you're like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: a fancy buffet. Yeah. There's another place here. I can't
Speaker 1: remember the name of it. I think Jason's Deli that
Speaker 1: I think they've got like a salad bar and a
Speaker 1: dessert bar, but you also order, uh, sort of the
Speaker 1: main portion of your meal and like soup and salad
Speaker 1: and dessert can come with it though, right Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it's so good. I love Jason's Delly. It's a good stuff.
Speaker 1: It is. I mean, it's a it's a big honkin
Speaker 1: salad bar and soft service cream chocolate vanilla and swirl um.
Speaker 1: They have they have this really great look kind of
Speaker 1: like um molasses bread like it's it's really chucky is
Speaker 1: you could check it out and their sandwiches and soups
Speaker 1: are pretty good to you. All right. Um, so problem customers,
Speaker 1: you know, we've talked about people that would stuff food
Speaker 1: in there, Like they would come in with like the
Speaker 1: zip blocks ready to go inside the purse, or they
Speaker 1: have like special plastic pouches in their coats. Uh. In Britain, Um,
Speaker 1: there were people at this one place buffet called Gobie
Speaker 1: in Brighton in Britain. Uh. They were banned for life
Speaker 1: in and they made the news. They're like, you can't
Speaker 1: come back here anymore. They did. Um, and I read this, uh,
Speaker 1: this Business Insider article where this person was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: you know, I wonder how easy it is to get
Speaker 1: kicked out of a buffet. So they went to a
Speaker 1: different buffet called Mr Woos and um, they said they
Speaker 1: tried so hard to get kicked out and um, just
Speaker 1: eating and eating and eating that they were basically crawling
Speaker 1: out when they finally left, and they finally asked the
Speaker 1: manager like what do you have to do to get
Speaker 1: kicked out? And the Mr Bob managers like, we would
Speaker 1: never kick anybody out. It says all you can eat,
Speaker 1: you know, you eat as much as you like, and uh,
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, I wish I would have wish I
Speaker 1: would have gone to a different place to try to
Speaker 1: get kicked out, because it sounded like they really paid
Speaker 1: the price for it. I also like the story in
Speaker 1: from the Chuck a Rama when in two thousand four
Speaker 1: a couple that was on Atkins were kicked out because
Speaker 1: they went to the carving station twelve times and they
Speaker 1: were just loading up on meat and they were like,
Speaker 1: you can't do it. That's the most expensive thing here, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the restaurant was like they had to issue a
Speaker 1: statement because apparently the position was we're a buffet, but
Speaker 1: we're not all you can eat, and there it's like
Speaker 1: basically a contradiction in terms, you have no business owning
Speaker 1: a buffet if it's not all you can eat, you know,
Speaker 1: look it up. So um, and that's actually a pretty
Speaker 1: fairly routine thing, Like you can get kicked out of
Speaker 1: a buffet pretty easily, and if it's particularly agreed, just
Speaker 1: your your band for life. Um. I'm realizing now that
Speaker 1: you by has a lot of buffet stories for somebody
Speaker 1: who doesn't like buffets. But um, she lived in Japan,
Speaker 1: for a while and she and our friend Ramy who
Speaker 1: she met there. Um, he is a big, strapping dude
Speaker 1: and he actually got I believe, banned from a Japanese
Speaker 1: sushi buffet because he would show up. It's like this,
Speaker 1: This poor couple who own this restaurant would just be like,
Speaker 1: please please, sir, no, please stop going back to get
Speaker 1: more food. But I could do some damage at a
Speaker 1: sushi buffet for sure. Yes, yes, yeah I could too.
Speaker 1: Uh So, now the dark side of buffet's I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of this has been dark. Yet we're I'm
Speaker 1: salivating somehow. Still our buffet's gross. Is how you titled
Speaker 1: this next section, And the one sentence you have is
Speaker 1: that answer is resounding. Yes, it's true. It's it's gross.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're sharing utensils, your your food or
Speaker 1: your body, grums are gonna be all over that when
Speaker 1: that that those tongs fall in the in the in
Speaker 1: the meat and gravy, and the guy behind you just
Speaker 1: picks him right on up and they may be wipe
Speaker 1: them off of the paper napkin like who who who
Speaker 1: calls someone over and says, sir, the tongs fell in here.
Speaker 1: That's what you're advised to do. If you're of a buffet,
Speaker 1: that's what you're supposed to do. If there's tongs in
Speaker 1: the in the food, that food is toast. It should
Speaker 1: not be served anymore because Mr poop hands, who just
Speaker 1: touched the tongs lasting is threw it into the surfried beef,
Speaker 1: has now corrupted the entire pan of stir fried beef.
Speaker 1: But you don't want to wait on the stir fried beef,
Speaker 1: so you just get it and wipe it off and
Speaker 1: use it. I mean, that's why. That's why buffet patrons
Speaker 1: tend to be more rugged than the average restaurant cover. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's also gross because that food is just sitting out
Speaker 1: there for a long time. Sometimes it's just dangerous. It's dangerous.
Speaker 1: They try to do what they can with ice and
Speaker 1: and schafing dishes and steamer tables, but you know, let's
Speaker 1: get real. Some of that stuff is well out of
Speaker 1: the required temperature range. Yeah, and so that ranges forty
Speaker 1: degrees fair height to a hundred and forty degrees heighten.
Speaker 1: Anything in that hundred degree window um is is fair
Speaker 1: game for things like e coli and shigella and sam
Speaker 1: and ella to grow and apparently the most prolific bacteria
Speaker 1: can double in population size in twenty minutes within that
Speaker 1: temperature range. So it's I mean, it's actually it's not
Speaker 1: just gross, it's kind of dangerous. Like if you read
Speaker 1: I mean, these don't get published very frequently beyond like
Speaker 1: local areas, so you would have to do some research.
Speaker 1: But if you just look up, um, you know, food
Speaker 1: poisoning and buffets on Google, you're going to find that
Speaker 1: it happens a lot because you're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: search a bunch of small towns and cities papers all
Speaker 1: at once, and it seems like it happens quite a bit.
Speaker 1: And that's why, Yeah, we all need to pay. We
Speaker 1: all owe a debt to Johnny garn Now. He is
Speaker 1: the restaurateur and germophobe who in nineteen fifty nine patented
Speaker 1: the sneeze guard. It was known as the food service
Speaker 1: table at the time. But those sneeze guards, they went
Speaker 1: from not there at all too. They're everywhere and required
Speaker 1: by law now over the course of you know, forty years.
Speaker 1: I remember by the time we were kids, they were
Speaker 1: pretty much in play unless he went to maybe went out,
Speaker 1: you know, if you went to a buffet that was
Speaker 1: a little more rural area. It might be kind of
Speaker 1: wide open, but I remember they're usually always being sneeze guards. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's definitely like law. And now I'm speaking
Speaker 1: of law. By the way, I forgot to mention with
Speaker 1: those um utensils, that shared utensils that buffet patrons serve
Speaker 1: themselves with, there's no law regarding how long those can
Speaker 1: stay out and how long they have to be or
Speaker 1: how often they have to be replaced. By the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does not surprise me. So um yeah, God bless
Speaker 1: Johnny Garnol, who was like, this is just gross, but
Speaker 1: this is the business I'm in, so let me try
Speaker 1: to improve it however I can, and he came up
Speaker 1: with a sneeze guard. Food waste is obviously a big problem,
Speaker 1: uh if you are in Ovation Brands, a big, big
Speaker 1: company with lots of uh buffets. They I think they
Speaker 1: UM filed for bankruptcy in sixteen, but they had three
Speaker 1: thirty buffets nationwide. They had real computer modeling and data
Speaker 1: data driven insight into exactly what to bring out and
Speaker 1: when to bring it out, and how to really cut
Speaker 1: down on that food waste, because that's that's a big
Speaker 1: cost for them. Not only is it just wasteful and
Speaker 1: terrible to throw big pans of food away, but that's,
Speaker 1: like you said, the margins are so thin. They have
Speaker 1: to do everything they can, including computer modeling, to really
Speaker 1: see if they can get that down to the very
Speaker 1: uh I guess minimum amount. Yeah, and like they had
Speaker 1: it down to a science man like they knew to
Speaker 1: the store, like based on that locations data, what food
Speaker 1: they should put out, at what time and in what
Speaker 1: amounts to try to cut down on food waste as
Speaker 1: much as possible, which is pretty impressive. But despite that,
Speaker 1: they still found that between five and of every pan
Speaker 1: of food, including apple pie, all the mode was going
Speaker 1: to waste um and there's just nothing they could do
Speaker 1: about it. And from what I could tell, that doesn't
Speaker 1: take into account the waste that was being sloughed off
Speaker 1: of like the customers plates who took all they wanted
Speaker 1: but did not eat all they took it. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of those phone calls about this computer modeling,
Speaker 1: you know, and like restaurant managers arguing with corporate. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, Frank, Buffalo doesn't move salisbury steak after two.
Speaker 1: They just don't stop putting it out. Just face it.
Speaker 1: I love who when people say face it, face it,
Speaker 1: face it. They can't move salisbury steak, frank uh. So
Speaker 1: some places are allowed and some communities are allowed to
Speaker 1: pick up this food for people who need food. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's probably kind of rare. We
Speaker 1: we talked about that, and that was that dude in
Speaker 1: that dumpster episode about gleaning. Um. But there are communities
Speaker 1: that definitely allowed gleaning, but there's some that expressly prohibited,
Speaker 1: which is sad because that is a lot of wasted
Speaker 1: food that's supposedly to Hotel buffets are the champs of
Speaker 1: food waste for not just buffets but the entire restaurant industry.
Speaker 1: They throw out about fifty of all the food they
Speaker 1: put out on any given day, which is just shameful.
Speaker 1: But the thing silver lying of the whole thing is
Speaker 1: is you don't have to worry about this food waste
Speaker 1: for much longer because buffets probably won't be around that long,
Speaker 1: or if they do, it's going to be in very
Speaker 1: limited small amounts because, like you said, Um, that Ovation
Speaker 1: Brands that was the leader of the industry for a while,
Speaker 1: they went bankrupt. Right now, it's Golden Corral, but Golden
Speaker 1: corrals up against the wall because not just restaurants are
Speaker 1: in trouble, but phats were typically singled out by the
Speaker 1: CDC guidelines. Is saying these should probably shut down until
Speaker 1: the pandemic is over because they are COVID nightmares. As
Speaker 1: far as restaurants are concerned, I think Golden cry would
Speaker 1: be up against the fence now, I guess so maybe
Speaker 1: up against the barbed wire. Yeah, I mean, people are
Speaker 1: eating healthier these days. Millennials are certainly not unless there's
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's an ironic millennial that loves a good buffet,
Speaker 1: but generally that's not their bag. Even baby boomers, which
Speaker 1: was a big part of the buffet generation, are eating
Speaker 1: healthier as they age. Uh you know, they don't they
Speaker 1: don't want to die. So everyone's trying to do a
Speaker 1: little better. And and it's been narrowed down to, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the local mom and pops, you know what.
Speaker 1: I have gone My dad lives up in the mountains,
Speaker 1: and I've gone to the mom and pop buffet there
Speaker 1: within the last like twelve years now there, but there's
Speaker 1: goose and then sure it's great, and that that stuff
Speaker 1: is cooked like that's like Grandma was fried chicken and
Speaker 1: like the real deal. Yeah it's no. Um, but yeah
Speaker 1: they are. I mean they're gonna they're not. The salad
Speaker 1: bar will be around. They'll always be buffet's, probably on
Speaker 1: cruise ships and there'll be some of casinos. The best
Speaker 1: buffet I ever had was in Vegas with you me.
Speaker 1: It was a breakfast buffet and they had no joke
Speaker 1: um of doughnut making station where they made donuts in
Speaker 1: front of you. It was like I can I can
Speaker 1: still like imagine myself there right now, happiest day of
Speaker 1: my life, like a little little friar. It was so good, dude,
Speaker 1: it was so good. But they also had frosting too.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like here's some cunaman sugar on it.
Speaker 1: It was they were amazing donuts. But um, so there's
Speaker 1: there's always going to be like buffet's here or there,
Speaker 1: but the idea of just buffet's being everywhere. Their heyday
Speaker 1: is over and they're definitely going the way of the
Speaker 1: dinas or face it, face it. But I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's said because I think the kids are gonna
Speaker 1: miss out on a an experience because it's kids who
Speaker 1: enjoy buffet, Do you know what I mean? Kids love
Speaker 1: him man, that that swirled ice cream that that tastes
Speaker 1: like acid rain will never get old. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: mean the the one of the things you can say
Speaker 1: about buffets that will lose is this ability to try
Speaker 1: new things. You know, like you don't you don't risk
Speaker 1: it all on ordering something that's your entree and then
Speaker 1: it's terrible and you just wasted it on trade. Like
Speaker 1: you can go try stuff at a buffet, like I
Speaker 1: tried frog legs when I was a kid at a
Speaker 1: buffet at a dinner um, a dinner theater that we
Speaker 1: used to go to. I probably never would have tried
Speaker 1: frog legs in my entire life had it not been
Speaker 1: for that buffet. So there's something to be lost with buffet's.
Speaker 1: It's true. I think I might have tried frog legs.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you ever went to this place.
Speaker 1: But my final plug it's not open anymore, so it's
Speaker 1: a worthless plug. But Athens, Georgia had a place called
Speaker 1: Charlie Williams Pine Crest Lodge. Oh yes, I remember the
Speaker 1: Pine Crest Lodge that was out I guess somewhere on
Speaker 1: the east side. It wasn't like close to campus or anything.
Speaker 1: That's that was a really kind of quote unquote nice
Speaker 1: buffet where like that's where the parents would always take
Speaker 1: the kids when they were in down Right, you wore
Speaker 1: your jeans without the holes and number that. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's it on frog legs, Right, you got anything else? No,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I feel like I owe it to myself
Speaker 1: to check out a buffet at some point soon all
Speaker 1: not soon, but like next year. Yeah, after the pandemic
Speaker 1: passes for sure. If there's any laft. Well, since we
Speaker 1: talked about the pandemic passing everybody, that means, of course
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mayo. Uh let me see, I've
Speaker 1: got a few good ones here. I'm gonna call this
Speaker 1: changed Life. Uh Kia Aura, guys, I'm writing because it's
Speaker 1: an episode of your podcast Help me discover my Lafe's
Speaker 1: passion in Dream Career ten years ago, I was a
Speaker 1: science obsess twelve year all listened to listening to stuff
Speaker 1: you should know frequently. In the episode that changed everything
Speaker 1: was how molecular gastronomy works. Remember that one? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the strange life changing one. The concept of breaking down
Speaker 1: a food to its molecular basis and reconstructing it into
Speaker 1: something unrecognizable from a sensory level. Blew my mind. You
Speaker 1: planted a concept to my head that inspired me ever since.
Speaker 1: That year. I did a presentation on h E R
Speaker 1: V E. What is that harvey V? I don't know
Speaker 1: what that is? I don't either. Oh no, HERV this
Speaker 1: h T V r E this, I don't know what
Speaker 1: that is. It sounds like it's a play on curb
Speaker 1: this starry shape. Okay. I had this presentation for my class.
Speaker 1: I saved up until like I could afford a kit
Speaker 1: of food activities the following year, as fortune had at
Speaker 1: a school teacher informed me that the more practical version
Speaker 1: of molecular gastronomy's food technology. Through a science fair, I
Speaker 1: was linked with a group of mentors with the New
Speaker 1: Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology through the ages
Speaker 1: of fourteen to sixteen h My early networking from six
Speaker 1: years prior helped me secure an amazing first internship at
Speaker 1: one of New Zealand's largest food manufacturers this summer. I
Speaker 1: still get giddy with excitement I felt from that episode
Speaker 1: every day, from studying non Newtonian fluid mechanics to experimenting
Speaker 1: with new stabilizers. A single episode has led me down
Speaker 1: a STEM path that I wouldn't have discovered otherwise. Yet
Speaker 1: it suits me completely. Man. That's the gift of knowing
Speaker 1: what I am meant to do early on has pulled
Speaker 1: me through severe mental and physical illness. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I would have continued to pursue a field and stem
Speaker 1: had I uh not known what was waiting for me.
Speaker 1: I think about how you guys change my life often.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for not letting you know sooner. That's okay.
Speaker 1: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for pointing
Speaker 1: me in a direction of food technology. It is an
Speaker 1: invisible yet highly important undercoat of modern life that I
Speaker 1: would have never known without you. And that is from
Speaker 1: Kizzy Man. Kissy, thank you was an amazing email. That's that, Chuck,
Speaker 1: is exactly why we take every topic as seriously as
Speaker 1: the last, isn't it. Yeah? I think so, because I mean,
Speaker 1: you never know who what it's going to mean to somebody,
Speaker 1: and like, even if we're like, oh, that was kind
Speaker 1: of interesting, there's somebody like Kissy out there is like, well,
Speaker 1: that episode just changed my life. So congratulations Kizzy, I'm
Speaker 1: figuring out what you want to do in life so early.
Speaker 1: Best of luck and best wishes, and thank you very
Speaker 1: much for letting us know that that was great. You
Speaker 1: never know the next great buffeteer might be listening to
Speaker 1: this very episode, right, very nice. Well, if you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch of this like Kissy did, or
Speaker 1: you think you're America's next great buffeteer, we want to
Speaker 1: hear from you, you can send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know is a production of iHeart Radio for more podcasts
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows