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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bright out there. Jerry just left to go get some food, we're guessing at a buffet, although probably not. I don't think she actually is going to a buffet. Chuck, I can actually hear Jerry laughing for the first. I can't, too.

I don't know if that's going to make it in the final edit, but it was creepy and otherworldly. Disembodied. Jerry laugh kind of sinister.

It's almost like we're in the same room again, almost. Man Almost someday, less than a year. I'm thinking less than a year. Yeah. Let's just call it that.

And we're talking about hitting the road again, huh? Eventually, yeah.

I mean, if things go great, maybe next fall.

But if they don't, then the next year we talk about stuff way early.

Yeah. I mean, those theaters are going to be jammed. And that's that's the big thought, is that when things truly get better, everyone and their people have never even performed live. We're going to book theaters to get up on stage.

It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a lot of pent up energy ready to be released right in our direction. Boy, talk about an easy crowd, man.

I can't wait for that. So speaking of talking about things, Chuck, great Segway, because it turns out we're talking about something today and specifically we're talking about buffets.

That's right. You have good Jimmy Buffet.

Do you have good. I hadn't even thought about that good joke. Do you have good memories of buffets from when you were a kid? Well, we're an adult.

We certainly went to buffets more than a little bit growing up, and it kind of jibed with everything that our household believed in, which was value for the dollar. Sure.

I learned from my dad that you should eat until you're physically uncomfortable and then a little bit more. Oh, that's good. Didn't have good food examples from my dad. And, you know, my mom has been known to stuff a role or two in her purse. No, sure.

Dude, she's she falls under the section titled Problematic Customers.

Yeah. And I think, boy, I hope she didn't hear that she can be so mad, but it was usually under the guise of like, well, I don't feel like I came in that hungry so I didn't eat as much as we did. So.

Well, I'll make you feel a little bit better. My mom, I don't think ever once in her entire life, I bought candy at a movie theater. She would always bring in those bag of bulk candies in her oversized giant 1980s purse. Yeah, yeah. And there was always great like she always had the good candy. But, you know, if you wanted, like snowcaps or something, you were so.

Well, you I will say this. I haven't been to a buffet. I was really trying to figure out the last time and I don't know, man like it literally may have been twenty years ago in Las Vegas or something. A town that I do not enjoy going to. Yeah, but I think maybe I can't think of any time. I used to go to a this sort of super Asian buffet when my sister and her husband lived in North Carolina with them.

Yeah. And it was one of those weird ones that had like this great Chinese food, but then like pasta and seafood. And it was but not like in the in the Asian style of seafood. Right. Right. Yeah. Like that kind of stuff. That's a typical Chinese buffet. They have lots of Chinese food, but they have everything and they'll have like eight different buffets all in one. Is that like that.

Yeah. But actually now I do remember the last time I went to a buffet, I did go to one of those KFC buffets. Mm hmm. But it had to have been more than fifteen years ago.

Was that the one in Valdosta? That's the only one I know about now.

And I remember I literally went because I saw it on the sign, said the buffet. And I was like, oh, I've heard of these. I got to do it.

Yeah, well, it's still around. There's one on exit, eighteen on I 75 in Valdosta, Georgia. There's a bona fide a KFC buffet. I can personally attest to its existence.

What was the last time you went to a buffet? I hadn't thought about it and I was thinking about it while you were talking. I was listening to you as well. But do you remember when we did that, that live catastrophe in Erie, Pennsylvania? Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the next performed at a school in front of like 19 people. Yes, yeah. And like ten of them had to be there for, like, fourth credit, I think.

Yeah. The the next day. So there's airplanes fly in and out of Erie a couple of times a week. And the the the the flight that I happen to have didn't leave till late the next afternoon. So I went and saw oh cure for Wellness I think was the movie I saw in the theater.

And then I went and ate at one of their local buffets and Erie stayed on an extra day, an extra two thirds of the day, very, very long, two thirds trysting.

I think I drove and flew out of another town. You did? You did. And I had I didn't have that foresight. But before that, I have to say one of my favorite buffets that I went to sometimes was Panama. You remember Panama over on Buford Highway?

Sure. Yeah, Panama. It just shut down. I believe in the last few months.

I don't think I ever went there was an Indian buffet. It was Bangladeshi, you know, like the average American would just be like, oh, good Indian food. But it was just magical. There is something that they put in the food that made everything really good, but they would do a lunch buffet and it was fantastic.

I bet you would pay for that, though. I would pay a lot, especially now that it's gone under. Oh, I see what you mean. You know what I mean? No, they had very good food. It was well made too. It didn't just taste good. It was like well well made. Like they had some 150 year old grandmother back in the kitchen overseeing things.

Yeah, I don't mean that it would be made bad, but Indian food is the love and bane of my existence. I love it. So is that right? But it never tears me up that pen.

Yeah. Does it get to me that bit. But that's that's part and parcel with buffets though Chuck. It might not just be Indian food, it could just be the fact that it's a buffet because buffets make you super duper sick. All right.

So should we talk about the smorgasbord? Yeah, because that's where the whole thing originated. Yeah, I was I did not know the origin of that word. So it's kind of cool. In Scandinavia in the 13th century, they had smorgasbords, but it was the smorgasbords and Bronwyn's boards. And it sounds a little more like if you were to put out like a nicer meat and cheese tray with some butter and spreads, maybe a little smoked fish. But the key here is vodka on that branded sport.

Right? So that's what everybody was there for. But they would lay out these spreads for like travelers who came to visit, guests who came over long distances. And they'd be like, you restore yourself with this lovely, you know, the spread of, like food. And over time, the Swede said, you know, this is a really great idea. Let's just make this the meal. So from what I can tell, it began is the Bronwyn's board and then later became the smorgasbord.

And in addition to the fact that it was like this awesome spread of great food, that everybody loved the aristocracy like the fact that the the the staff would just be attending to the smorgasbord that wouldn't be waiting on the guests. So if you kind of wanted more privacy or whatever at your dinner party, a smorgasbord was the way to go.

Yeah, that makes sense. Keep him out of our hair, tend to the food. I think it was a little more of a refined experience than just go like stuff your face with everything.

Yeah, that's that's still a big difference between a Swedish smorgasbord and an American buffet. Yeah. Like very well laid out on like a round table in a specific order. That's not necessarily just in order to make you fill up on cheap food first, which we'll get to later. But yeah, it sounds kind of cool. And then in the nineteen twelve Stockholm Olympic Games, I think the rest of the world saw the smorgasbord. It was like we need to bring a little piece of that back home to the good old USA.

Yeah. They're like you serve yourself from a table in the same room where you sit down and eat. This is amazing. And there is something amazing about it. They still, despite researching and writing this whole thing, I cannot put my finger on what it is, but there's just something about buffets or smorgasbords. Right? So something did capture the world's attention at that 1912 Olympics. And then in America in particular, the smorgasbord really got a boost at the 1939 World's Fair.

That's the one where that big globe is over in Flushing, Queens, right? Oh, sure. Yeah. So at that one, there was a Swedish pavilion and they had a restaurant there called the Three Crowns Restaurant, and they put out a a real deal smorgasbord and the Americans just went bonkers for it. And it is a matter of fact, they said, just give us a couple of years. We're going to figure out how to turn this into basically the most American thing anyone's ever invented in the history of food service.

Right. So from there, we moved to Las Vegas, which is, you know, you can't talk about buffets without talking about Vegas, of course. And early, early on, what would become the Las Vegas Strip before Benny Siegel even was dreaming of the Flamingo?

Well, it was Bugsy Bugsy Siegel, right? Yeah. Benny says his real name, Bugsy, was. I was wondering that the way you said it, I've been correcting you lately and just putting my foot in my mouth every time. So I came out a little more trepidation to see them before I did. Definitely more trepidation slowly than the second year. A correction.

Did you get the the supercute of that from the basically exact same conversation we already had years before?

No, I did see people mention it. Yeah. Someone like Louis Pasteur. You got to hear that. Please refer that to me. Yeah, I'll have to dig it up. It was good stuff. I want to give him his do, too. Okay, so Herb MacDonald was this guy's name. He was a publicist and he was kind of one of the very first people to start working on. One would become the Vegas Strip. And he's given credit as the guy that came up with the his El Rancho Vegas or I guess where he worked at the El Rancho, which was the first hotel there on the strip.

What would become the Las Vegas buffet?

Yeah, the legend has it that one night in the late 40s, he was hungry and he went to the kitchen and came back with a bunch of cold cuts and cheeses, kind of laid him out to make himself a sandwich. And some of the gamblers who were there late at night were like, hey, I'm kind of hungry. Can I get some of that? And he thought, Huh, this is not a bad idea. If I lay out some food that isn't a sit down meal that the gamblers can serve themselves, they're going to spend more time here gambling.

So maybe I will create what's now known as the American buffet in Las Vegas, the cheap all you can eat, 24 hour buffet had its origins from that little eureka moment.

Yeah, the midnight chuckwagon was the name of the deal. The first deal, I guess, at a dollar 25. Mm hmm. And they became known for the 24 hour version, which was the buckaroo buffet. I love that. Which was a buck was a dollar the buckaroo, of course.

Right. And yeah, it's I mean, it's everyone kind of knows the history of Vegas and like cheap food, cheap or free food and cheaper free drinks and fairly cheap or free rooms. That was sort of the old days. It's not a cheap, cheap town to visit these days. I think they still rent a lot of deals and stuff like that because gambling is where they make, you know, where they want to make most of their money.

But they did wise up at some point and they're like, hey, listen, we're not just going to keep giving away steak dinners and stuff.

Well, people started coming for the shows and stuff like that and weren't necessarily gambling. Time was if you want them, I guess you went empty your pockets there so they could afford to lose money on the buffet or whatever. But the the Vegas all all you can eat all night buffet that started in the late 40s and became synonymous with the town actually kind of lent a bit of cachet to buffets in general in the United States is we'll see like they kind of spread from there, started in in Scandinavia, moved to the World's Fair in 1939, then to Vegas and then from Vegas.

It just kind of spread like this spider web of I don't like a lot of like apple turnover all about.

OK, yeah, I thought you were going to say something like a five gallon pan of hollandaise sauce.

Oh, that that is so much better than what I said, man. That was that was amazing, Chuck.

All right, let's take a break and we're going to dive into the Golden Age. We love Golden Ages, the golden age of the buffet right after this.

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OK, so there's long been in America restaurants that have been like all you can eat blank for blank amount of money. Yeah. Used to do that. I'm sure.

I mean like every day. Buffalo's Cafe for Wings. Oh no. Did they have an all you can eat.

Yeah but it was, it was like all you can eat wings for like say eight or nine or ten dollars or whatever. Right. Yeah.

We went to a place called Rio Vista on Memorial Drive, which was it was like all you can eat catfish on Tuesday nights, that kind of thing, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And that's still very much around. And that apparently is where the whole the whole idea behind buffets finds its other footing. It's other Ord's in the United States. Was this these kind of deals that were meant to kind of generate new business, like you would go try out a restaurant? There's this really great site called Restaurant ING through history. Terrible name, but a great site. And the person who runs the site found this ad for the city restaurant in El LIRR, Ohio.

Yeah, from 1896.

And it was all you can eat oyster stew for 25 cents. So it had been around for a little while, but when the depression rolled around, all of a sudden people were like, oh, all you can eat. Sounds kind of good because I haven't eaten in a week and a half and I've got this whole family who's starving too. So let's go try this. And they did. Yeah, that surprised me. I was surprised to see them turn up in the Depression just because of value and stuff.

But, you know, food prices were low, so I guess they could afford to charge people fifty or sixty cents or something. Yeah.

For all they well, not all they care to eat. That wasn't really a thing yet, but people did love it. And apparently desserts during the Depression era buffets was really where they because I guess that was just a rare, a rare treat. So they would really load up on the sweets.

Yeah, they they definitely would, but it taught people who ran restaurants like, wait a minute, wait a minute, if you order people or if you offer people, you know what all they can eat of something like some people do like overindulge, but a lot of people just eat like a normal amount, which is weird. And that kind of gave this like confidence, I guess, to restaurateurs to kind of start to move into the like, changing their restaurant entirely over to and all you can eat set up.

Yeah. So, you know, we go now to the 50s and 60s where legit chains started opening that were, you know, very cheap or, you know, let's just say inexpensive buffets.

And this is where you start to see, you know, mac and cheese and carb heavy meals and fried chicken and salads like Jello, you know, the little kind of festive looking jello mold salads that you're not quite sure what's inside.

Mm hmm. And then Chain said, you know what, this smorgasbord word is kind of weird.

Like, I don't think they were using the word buffet at all at that point where they I started around the same time in like the 50s or 60s, OK, but they were using smorgasbords sometimes or smoggy or other variations like Moorgate or Mauga. And this is when they kind of started leaning away from these nice round tables of food to the long sort of cattle style grazing. Yeah, yeah.

I think, you know, like I said, that Vegas buffets kind of gave buffets everywhere else in the United States has kind of cachet. And part of that was presentation, and that is more and more chains kind of grew and took over the whole buffet style food. Yeah, they did. Away with the presentation part really quick. And just to, like, eat your slop, you know, she knows more about that. They'd shove you into line, that kind of thing.

But the I the idea, like you said, smorgasbord was kind of taking off. It seems to have been like out West and in the Midwest, mortgages and all that. But then elsewhere, Buffet started to come to be used. So by about the 50s or the 60s, you had mortgages and buffets proliferating across the United States like a pan of apple turnover all mode.

Yeah. And that word buffet, you know, comes from the furniture piece, the French furniture piece for like we call them sideboards sometimes. It's what? Yeah, we have a couple in our house from Emily's grandparents, but people called those buffets as well. We call them bedspreads, but I call them comforters. Yeah. For Afghan. Remember those grown up? Did you have Afghans in the house? Yeah.

Yeah, they were always too small. It was like, why did you make this?

It's also why you keep making this the easiest way to keep warm of all time, probably besides a wool blanket.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not big on Afghans. I like things to be bigger than that. So softer.

I don't know about small Afghans. What's going on there. They, they were always just slightly too small.

So like they wouldn't cover from Chinta foot. No, no. Never, never has there been an Afghan that is covered from Jenda foot successfully even if you do the little diagonal trek.

Yes, I've even tried that. And then it's like too short on the sides. So, like, my love handles would be cold. Oh, no, get out.

The thing that I remember growing up with is what comes next, which was a lot of these. But the Western Steakhouse sort of buffet, which was actually one of them, was started by Dan Blocher, who played Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza. He started the Ponderosa Steakhouse, which I must have known that back then, because we went to Ponderosas and Bonanza was the one the big one that we went to Ponderosa was the buffet.

I grew up with two up in Toledo. Yeah, I love those bonanzas.

It's sort of I mean, the same company, right? Yeah.

As far as I know, I'm not sure what the difference was. We didn't have a bonanza. Like I said, it was just Toledo, but we did have that Ponderosa and it was wonderful.

What about Sizzler? Sizzler. We didn't have. But I was aware, you know, when you think of like the steakhouse theme buffet, your sizzler where comes to mind? Yeah, I was where we are with the Sizzler that seem like a cut above, if I remember correctly.

Yeah.

I think it always at the very least, positioned itself. If not was actually a cut above. There's also one called Chuck Arama. Never I never heard of, I think Golden Corral everybody knows about. It's been around since the 70s and Golden Corral is like the last man standing. From what I can tell, it's actually doing rather well. I think there is still one over by the north, the Kathmandu, I'm not mistaken. They're everywhere. They're still building them now.

Yeah, but they're not everywhere around where I live. I got you. What about did you ever go to Western Sizzlin?

Because it was. Yeah. Oh, really? It was established in August. So I would guess you had been there before.

Yeah, I went to Western Sizzlin and then the other big ones and they are in fact next on the list. Or when they went sort of farming homespun, there was an old country buffet near where I lived and there were also hometown buffets, Ryan's Grill and then Bakery and Buffet, all owned by Ovation Brands, which was just pumping out garbage food buffets all over the country. Right?

Yeah. Youve said the worst case of food poisoning she ever had was the first time she ever tried a buffet. And it was Orion's her. And she says, you can't even say that word. Like she can't even be friends with somebody named right now because she'll get sick at the thought of it. Oh, man. She can't even watch Ryan Gosling or Ryan Reynolds. No. Now I have to call her.

I have to call them Gossling if I call them anything else I like and was a big fan. And we as a family as well of the, I guess, ethnic buffets with we didn't do many Mexican ones, but there were definitely Mexican. There was definitely one we went to sometimes on Sunday morning that had I think it was kind of even before they started calling things brunch. But I can't remember the name of it. But it had a really nice taco station and they would make you like a fajita station.

And that stuff was so good. You don't remember the name of it now, man, I can't remember the name. I don't think it was Poncho's I don't think was a chain.

I got you. We we went to cheese when I was a kid. I don't remember being a buffet. Strangely, I don't know why, but I didn't know it was either. Yeah, that's where I was introduced to the Chimichanga.

Uh, we got the best I like to eat and I'd love to say, but cheese was like the Olive Garden of Mexican restaurant, you know what I mean? Yeah, I think so.

I didn't really go to those that much, but we did go to Mongolian barbecue in the eighties. There was one another on Memorial Drive near where I live that, you know, that's where you pick out all your and I can't imagine the health codes because they literally had, like, raw meat that you would pick out. Yeah. And then hand to a person to cook. Yeah. With your just your your your bare hands cuffed man filled with with raw meat.

It was so good though. There's a chain called Hewat, it's a Mongolian grill. It's like make your own stir fry buffet. And they just they're newcomer's. They've been around for about twenty years and they're actually doing rather well. As far as buffets are going well, good for them.

There's also there's a little bit of history that I found on that restaurant through history site. Jan Whitakers site. She turned up a couple of gems that I just thought you have to mention. It's like that whole smorgasbord thing when people were trying to figure out how to Americanize it. There was a hilarious collision between ethnicities when like an Asian proprietor took over like a smorgasbord or opened a smorgasbord where you would have like Gong Lee's Mawji or Johnny Haarms Chuckwagon, Hoft Province Mawji.

That's great. I just love that. I think that's the cutest thing ever. I'll bet Johnny Ham and Guanglie were very happy, welcoming gentlemen.

You know, Pizza Buffets was something we did a lot as well. There was one called Village and Pizza near us, and I guess it was could be akin to like a shakey's who I think is kind of the king of the of the pizza buffet. But boy, those pizza buffets.

Yeah, I remember it was like like he always had a plan at any buffet, like a game plan. You didn't just like casually eat like we had a game plan. But those pizza buffets, I remember people sitting around in the restaurant with like one eye on when they bring in those pies out. And it was. Yeah, oh yeah.

People would attack it. They would swarm. Swarm. Yeah, yeah. Pizza Hut had buffets for a very long time and they still do from what I understand. But those it's the dessert pizzas that are like the bomb. Yeah. I think keep pizza buffets going. And that's always the sad pizza too that no one wanted. That just sat and sat right. If you're looking for a pizza buffet, they have six now. They're kind of all over the place.

I don't think there is this. I think we all need a pizza buffet once in a while, Chuck. But there is this site called Mashed, uh, which I hadn't heard of, but they had a lot of good stuff that I ran across for this article. But they were rating buffets and they got to secedes and they said, Do you like eating cardboard? No. Then stay away from Sissie's. I was like, that's me. The funny thing is now is an adult.

Like, I go to New York and like, I'll grab a slice and that is the meal. All right. And it's not like I would like. Nine more of these Desert One, yeah, yeah, it's it's crazy.

Yeah, but every once in a while it's, I don't know, just going berserk on food.

Is there something about it? Maybe that's the thing that can put my finger on going berserk on food. Yeah. The allure of buffets.

I liked this in high school. My Haak for school lunch was the salad buffet. Well actually wasn't a buffet but it was a build your own salad that you might as well have. You know, you didn't need to go back because I would I would build these huge salads just stacked with, like ham and turkey and cheese and bacon bits and very little lettuce was going on in their croutons and then drench it with ranch dressing.

And that was a really good value at my high school cafeteria. That's awesome.

Yeah. Once you drench it with ranch, it's like goodbye, nutritional value, love.

But salad buffets were really big in the 80s and 90s. Yeah, they were, you know, people were trying to eat a little better. And so I think in 1978, the two big salad buffet competitors, Super Salad and Souplantation and Souplantation also was known as Sweet Tomatoes for a while. They were both founded in 78 and they had a pretty good run up until the 90s. And then people were like, I don't think this is actually very healthy.

And they said it's never been. And they started to go away little by little.

My favorite name of all time of those style of restaurants. I don't know if you remember lettuce. Surprise.

Yes, yes, yes. They were good. I love lettuce. Surprise you actually to all of those super salad souplantation. I mean, like there I like the idea behind them, but they're, you know, not not actually healthy now.

Of course not. It's it's. Like I said, my salad was probably worse for you or worse for me than whatever was in the regular lunch and Big Mac. And speaking of Big Macs, it turns out, Chuck, I read this really great article on oh, I can't remember maybe Eater, but it was like this, the history of fast food buffets. And there's like this whole subculture where all they want to do is talk about fast food buffets.

That's it. Yeah. And there's like legendary ones that may or may not have existed, like McDonald's supposedly had a buffet for a little while or Taco Bell. But the impression that I have is that that might have been like a local franchisee trying something out on Madison. Really?

Yeah. Just completely lost their ass in there, like serving serving McDonald's or Taco Bell buffet style.

Well, I was a Wendy's supervisor adherent. Yeah. I think it told the story before for newspaper staff. You were allowed to check out and go quote unquote, sell ads or take pictures or whatever.

So all the newspaper staff would always hit the super bar near the high school and eat pasta and a little Mexican taco salad. Yeah, and my favorite thing was they they used I don't you remember, they used their hamburger buns is the bread and they would grill those hamburger buns. Yes. Garlic bread. Yeah. It was good. It really was. Yeah. Because like there their stuff was legit, like even their little salad bar was good but not bad.

Like a big potato bar and the whole thing was and it was like three bucks or something like that. Although the key here is it was not all you can eat. And from what I gather, that was one of the downfalls of the window, was it not? I don't believe it was. I believe got got go through one one big fat trip, much as you could fit that, because that's what that was. That's my memory, though.

I'm not 100 percent sure, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was. And I also saw somewhere that that was one of the reasons why it went away, is because they just had so much trouble keeping people from going back four seconds or thirds or whatever.

That also explains now, looking back, why I always had pasta and enchilada sauce and baked potato. Right, exactly. Because you're like, where can I put this right? Oh, there.

If you want to take one more break and then come back and talk about how buffets make any money at all. Yeah, let's do it.

OK, we'll be right back. Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha cha cha cha.

OK, Chuck, so there's this thing like the fact that if you're a Las Vegas buffet and you're offering things for cheap, you're actually losing money. It kind of shows you at points out that buffets have a really narrow profit margin. Apparently, restaurants have, you know, one of the narrowest profit margins of any industry. But then the buffets are the narrowest of narrow, like they really have trouble making money. And so there's actually an entire economic theory called adverse selection that predicts that buffets just shouldn't exist.

And yet they do in the face of economic theory.

Yeah. So this is interesting. Adverse selection basically is if you have a case where a buyer has more information than the seller does, you're going to be in a distinct advantage as the buyer. So the seller is going to set their price at a price point that's low enough to attract the worst customer they can get and high enough to not high enough to chase away the really good customer, which I guess in this case would be a really heavy eater.

So the good customer to the buffet. Well, low capacity had the low capacity eater. And it's basically means you're not going to be in business very long.

Yeah, because you're going to set your price high enough that the low capacity eater is going to be like, this isn't worth it. I don't eat enough to justify paying this. Yeah, but it's going to be low enough so that a high capacity eater with a huge empty belly is going to say, oh, that's a great value. So you're going to attract nothing but high capacity eaters and you're. Yeah, your business is just going to go away.

And yet buffets still managed to persist despite that very logical economic theory, predicting that they shouldn't. And it turns out that when you start digging around in the business of buffets, that there's a lot of like tricks that they use that you don't find elsewhere in the restaurant industry to kind of protect that very razor thin profit margin any way they possibly can.

Yeah. And, you know, obviously, if you're looking at a buffet and how they made or make money, the family unit is a really big deal because and I know it's it's very sort of lazy and reductive to paint it in such a kind of a king of Queensland way. But that's how Buffet runners and managers and restaurateurs looked at it was you've got this big horse of a father that's like I need to eat at a buffet tonight. And this diminutive little wife is just like, well, I don't eat very much.

And the kids are like, well, I love the dessert. So the only one in that family is that's really putting a hurting on the buffet is the dad, Kevin James, Kevin James. And again, this is not how we look at things. It is super lazy. But if you're talking about the buffet industry, that's exactly how they looked at it.

Yeah, I mean, like all of those cliches about like, oh gosh, here comes a football team or something like that, that's that's actually like part of the buffet industry. They worry about stuff like. Oh totally. Yeah. So some ways that they they try to to balance out that there find that balance between low capacity and high capacity eaters or to to kind of protect their their profit margin in the face of, you know, more high capacity eaters than low capacity eaters.

In one way, they'll just straight up kind of fly in the face of established all you can eat ethos, which is all you can eat, no strings attached. And some restaurants say, you know what, now we're not going to do that. We're going to basically use nudge nudge psychology to kind of get you to to not be wasteful, to be a little more mindful, because it's kind of part and parcel with going to a buffet is being like, I don't have to use my brain at all for the next hour that I'm going to this buffet.

And so they'll they'll try to do things like they'll say, like take all you want, eat all you take is a very common sign. You'll see. And in fact, Chuck, I mentioned this this restaurant called Grandpas Down in Cocoa, Florida.

It's a it's in a train, which is just that in and of itself is worth going to. Right. But they have a salad bar and on their salad bar has a sign that says if if you waste food or if the waiter or server determines you have wasted food from your trip to the salad bar, you haven't eaten enough. You'll be charged. Two dollars is a two dollar charge for wasting food from the salad bar. And I can't tell you how many arguments you, me and I have seen between, like, old couples about whether or not that they're going to get charged that two dollars because the husband or the wife didn't eat enough of the salad from the salad bar.

We know how that ends. It's like, is it buffets or gluttonous enough that ends with some old man saying, oh yeah, watch this. By shoving whatever food is on that plate down his throat, right in front of the manager. Yeah, man. Yeah. Other places do that, too. I've heard it plenty of places when I was a kid that supposedly like the rumor is I don't think I ever saw it happen. But they would charge you for wasted food.

Yeah. I don't know if they actually do. I think it's a threat. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's kind of like a mandatory mask policy. They're not going to put you in jail for not wearing a mask, but the fact that it exists is going to make more people go ahead and do it than otherwise would. Yeah. Another trick they will lay on you is to not clear your plates away because I guess there is real research that says that people are not prone to go up for more food if there's like three sort of half eaten dirty plates sitting and sitting in front of them.

I guess the shame accumulation keeps them from coming back.

Yeah, that's happened to me. I realize I've been a target of that kind of harassment now that I've done this recently, OK, I had no idea. And now I'm a little bitter about it. I mentioned earlier about the front loading it with carbs and that is true. They have done studies that show that I think Cornell University why they did this, but they have a huge like food like food industry program.

OK, like the national leader in it. All right. I'm glad you said that because I thought it was a strange thing to study, but. Seventy five percent of people in a in a buffet line they found got the first thing in the line no matter what it was. And so the idea is that you put like if it's a Chinese buffet, that's where you would put the fried rice or old country buffet is. That's where you'd put the mashed potatoes and gravy maybe.

Yeah. And, you know, you want them to fill up on that stuff. And by the time they get to the the real high dollar amount, which is like the bagged beef that we're going to talk about in a minute, that you're not as hungry. Yeah, that same study, I believe, found that two thirds of the stuff that there is on the plate after you've made your rounds on the buffet were the first things that you encountered.

Like you just go up and you start behaving in this really predictable way. So, you know, buffets protect their bottom line by catering to that. They also like, if you ever noticed, when you go to a buffet, it's like 599. But then when you go to check out, it's like ten ninety nine because you're Coke, your fountain Coke was five dollars and that found Coke costs them next to nothing. So to make five dollars on it is a really good way to boost their profits where they're otherwise losing it.

You know, hemorrhaging money.

That's why we drank water. Yeah. So I've read some stuff about people getting kicked out of buffets, which we'll talk about in a second. But some buffets are like we don't serve tap water. Like, sorry, you have to pay for food, drink, no matter what it is.

They also have to watch their price point with pricing it too low so that people don't think they're eating garbage food. So they've done studies on that and a pizza buffet for four dollars. I think people who pay the four dollars considered the food eleven percent less good or desirable than people that pay literally twice as much feed eight dollars even though the food was the same. Yeah. Double digit difference.

Yeah. You know, I guess I might as well say it here. I worked on a job as a food stylist, not as the food stylist, but when you're a paid sometimes they would just say, hey, food style, we need you for this whole job, just go be one of them. And I did that for a job on a an unnamed major chain, you know, sort of one of those bar restaurants is all I'll say.

And literally every single thing on the menu comes Baghead and most of it comes precooked.

Yeah, that's why I, like a lot of restaurants, will say we're a scratch kitchen because they're saying, like, we don't use Sysco, like we actually use ingredients that you would use at home. But yeah, so many restaurants just use Sysco or some other food service where all that stuff is pretty cooked by Sysco and it just shows up in bags. And your job as the cook is to put it together and heat it up and then that's what you do.

That's actually one way that buffets save money is by having to employ actual chefs or cooks. And they also have to employ far fewer wait staff because, you know, they're just coming over to make sure your drink is refilled or something like that. They need way fewer people because you're serving yourself, which saves them money. And then there's another trick that kind of falls in a little bit with the the, you know, take all you want, eat all you take.

Kind of. Yeah. And apparently Sizzler led the charge on this, that whole all you can eat idea if you stop and think about it, it's. Is a lot like a challenge today, some like, you know, the reptilian part of your brain takes it that way. Watch this.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a sizzler said, well, we're going to change that to all you care to eat, which is much more genteel and it's much less of a it's much less hostile or aggressive sounding. Yeah. I mean, it never took off, obviously, but you can still see that every once in a while you'll see like a buffet sign or something like that. You're like, oh, that's a fancy buffet.

Yeah. There's another place here. I can't remember the name of it. I think Jason's Deli that I think they got like a salad bar and a dessert bar. But you also order sort of the main portion of your meal like soup and salad and dessert can come with it, though, right? Yeah. And it's so good. I love Jason's Deli. Is it good stuff? It is. I mean, it's a it's a big honkin salad bar and soft serve ice cream, chocolate, vanilla and swirl.

Yeah, they have, they have this really great look, kind of like molasses bread like it's, it's really good. Chucky's, you could check it out and their sandwiches and soups are pretty good.

All right. So problem customers, you know, we've talked about people that would stuff food in there, like they would come in with like the Ziplocs ready to go inside the purse. Yeah. Or they have, like, special plastic pouches in their coats. In Britain. There were people at this one place, buffet, called Gobe in Brighton. In Britain, they were banned for life in 2012 and they made the news. They're like, you can't come back here anymore.

They did. And I read this this Business Insider article where this person was like, oh, man, you know, I wonder how easy it is to get kicked out of a buffet. So they went to a different buffet called Mr. Wu's, and they said they tried so hard to get kicked out and just eating and eating and eating that they were basically crawling out when they finally left and they finally asked the manager, like, what do you have to do to get kicked out?

And the Mr. Rude manager is like, we would never kick anybody out. It says all you can eat, you know, you eat as much as you like and they're like, OK, I wish I would wish I would have gone to a different place to try to get kicked out because it sounded like they really paid the price for it. I also like this story in from the Chuka Ramah when in 2004 a couple that was on Atkins were kicked out because they went to the carving station 12 times and they were just loading up on meat and they were like, you can't do it.

That's the most expensive thing. Er get out.

Right. Yeah. So the restaurant was like they had to issue a statement because apparently the position was, were a buffet but were not all you can eat. And it's like basically a contradiction in terms. You have no business owning a buffet if it's not all you can eat, you know. Yeah. Look it up. So and that's actually a pretty fairly routine thing. Like you can get kicked out of a buffet pretty easily. And if it's particularly egregious, you're banned for life.

I'm realizing now that U.B. has a lot of buffet stories for somebody who's like Puffy's, but she lived in Japan for a while and she and her friend Raymi, who she met there, he is a big strapping dude. And he actually got, I believe, banned from a Japanese sushi buffet because he would show up like this. This poor couple who owned this restaurant would just be like, please, please, sir, no, please stop going back to get more food.

But I could do some damage at a sushi buffet for sure.

Yes, yes. Yeah, I could, too.

So now the dark side of buffets, I mean, a lot of this has been dark, yet we're salivating somehow. Still. Yeah, our buffets gross is how you titled this next section. And the one sentence you have is that answer is a resounding yes. It's true. It's gross. You know, when you're sharing utensils, your your food or your body germs are going to be all over that when that that those tongs fall in the in the in the meat and gravy and the guy behind you just picks them right on up and maybe wipes them off with a paper napkin.

Like who who who calls someone over. And Cesur the tongs fell in here.

That's what you're advised to do. If you're supposed to have a buffet, that's what you're supposed to do. If there's tongs in the in the food, the food is toast. It should not be served anymore because Mr Poo Pants who just touch the tongs Larsons threw it into the stir fry beef has now corrupted the entire pan of stir fried beef.

But you don't want to wait on the stir fried beef, so you just get it and wipe it off and use it. Yeah, it's. I mean, that's why.

That's why Buffet patrons tend to be more rugged than the average restaurant goer.

It's also gross because that food is just sitting out there for a long time. Sometimes it's it's dangerous. It's dangerous. They try to do what they can with ice and chafing dishes and steamer tables. But, you know, let's get real. Some of that stuff is well out of the required temperature range. Yeah.

And so that range is forty degrees Fahrenheit. One hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit and anything in that hundred degree window is is fair game for things like E. coli and shigella and salmonella to grow. And apparently the most prolific bacteria can double in population size in 20 minutes within that temperature range. So it's I mean, it's actually it's not just gross. It's kind of dangerous. Like if you read I mean, these don't get published very frequently beyond like local areas.

So you would have to do some research. But if you just look up, you know, food poisoning and buffets on Google, you're going to find that it happens a lot because you're going to be able to search a bunch of small towns and cities, papers all at once. And it seems like it happens quite a bit.

And that's why, yeah, we all need to pay. We all owe a debt to Johnny Gano. He is the restaurateur in germophobia who in 1959 patented the sneeze guard. It was known as the food service table at the time, but those sneeze guards, they went from not there at all to their everywhere and required by law. Now, over the course of, you know, 20, 30, 40 years, I remember by the time we were kids, they were pretty much in play unless you went to maybe one out.

You know, if you went to a buffet that was a little more rural area, it might be kind of wide open.

But I remember they're usually always being sneeze guards.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's definitely like law. Now, speaking of law, by the way, I forgot to mention with those utensils that shared utensils that Buffet patrons served themselves with, there's no law regarding how long those can stay out and how long they have to eat or how often they have to be replaced, by the way. Yeah, it does not surprise me.

So, yeah, God bless Johnny Gano. He was like, this is just gross, but this is the business I'm in, so let me try to improve it however I can. And he came up with the sneeze guard.

Food waste is obviously a big problem if you are an ovation. Brand's a big, big company with lots of buffets. They I think they filed for bankruptcy in 2016, but they had three hundred and thirty buffets nationwide. They had real computer modeling and data data driven insight into exactly what to bring out and when to bring it out and how to really cut down on that food waste, because that's that's a big cost for them. Not only is it just wasteful and terrible to throw big pounds of food away, but that's like he said, the margins are so thin they have to do everything they can, including computer modeling, to really see if they can get that down to the very, I guess, minimum amount.

Yeah.

And like they had it down to a science man, like they they knew to the store, like based on that location data, what food they should put out at what time and in what amounts to try to cut down on food waste as much as possible, which is pretty impressive. But despite that, they still found that between five and 25 percent of every pan of food, including apple pie ala mode, was going to waste. And there's just nothing they could do about it.

And from what I could tell, that doesn't take into account the waste that was being sloughed off of like the customer's plates, who took all they wanted but did not eat all they took it.

I'm trying to think of those phone calls about this computer modeling, you know, and like restaurant managers arguing with corporate. Right. I'm telling you, Frank Buffalo doesn't move Salisbury steak after two. They just don't stop putting it out. Just face it. I love it when people say, face it, face it. Yeah, face it. They can't move Salisbury steak.

Frank So some places are allowed in. Some communities are allowed to pick up this food for people who need food. But, you know, I think that's probably kind of rare.

Sadly, we talked about that and that was that dude in that dumpster episode about gleaning. There are communities that definitely allow gleaning, but there's some that expressly prohibit it, which is sad because there is a lot of wasted food and food on the plate.

The patrons don't eat. That's wasted as well.

Supposedly to hotel buffets are the champs of food waste for not just buffets, but the entire restaurant industry. They throw out about fifty percent of all the food they put out on any given day, which is just shameful. But the the silver lining to the whole thing is, is you don't have to worry about this food waste for much longer because buffets probably won't be around that long. Or if they do, it's going to be in very limited small amounts because like you said there, they're Ovation brands.

That was the leader of the industry for a while. They went bankrupt. Right now it's Golden Corral, but Golden Corral is up against the wall because. Not just restaurants are in trouble, but these were specifically singled out by the CDC guidelines as saying these should probably shut down until the pandemic is over because they are covid nightmares as far as restaurants are concerned.

I think Golden Corral would be up against the fence now. I guess so. They'd be up against the barbed wire. Yeah, I mean, people are eating healthier these days. Millennials are certainly not unless there's I'm sure there's an ironic millennial that loves a good buffet, but generally that's not their bag. Even baby boomers, which was a big part of the buffet generation, are eating healthier as they age. You know, they don't they don't want to die.

So everyone's trying to do a little better. And and it's been narrowed down to, you know, sort of the local mom and pops. You know what? I have gone my dad lives up in the mountains and I've gone to the mom and pop buffet there within the last like 12 years now. No, that's awesome. But there are those. And then, sure, it's great that stuff is cooked like that's like grandma's fried chicken and like the real deal.

Yeah. It's not bad food right now, but yeah, they are.

I mean, they're going to they're the salad bar will be around. They'll always be based probably on cruise ships and there'll be some casinos. The best buffet I ever had was in Vegas with you. Me, it was a breakfast buffet and they had a no joke doughnut making station where they made doughnuts in front of you. It was like, I can I can still, like, imagine myself there right now. Happiest day of my life.

Like, a little a little fryer. Yeah. It was so good to hear. It was so good. But they also had frosting too. It wasn't just like your some cinnamon sugar on it. It was, they were amazing doughnuts. But so there's there's always going to be like buffets here or there. But the idea of just buffets being everywhere, their heyday is over and they're definitely going the way of the dinosaur or face it, not face it.

But I mean, I think it's sad because I think the kids are going to miss out on an experience because it's kids who enjoy buffets, you know what I mean? Kids love them. And that that swirled ice cream that tastes like acid rain will never get old. Yeah.

And I mean, the one of the things you can say about buffets that will lose is this ability to try new things. You know, like you don't you don't risk it all and ordering something that your entree and then it's terrible and you just wasted it on trade. Like you can go try stuff at a buffet. Like I tried frog legs when I was a kid, at a buffet, at a dinner, a dinner theater that we used to go to.

I probably never would have tried frog legs in my entire life had it not been for that buffet. So there's something to be lost with buffets. It's true.

I think I might have tried frog legs, and I don't know if you ever went to this place, but my final plug, it's not open anymore. It's it's a worthless plug. But Athens, Georgia, had a place called Charlie Williams Pinecrest Lodge. Oh, yes. I remember the Pinecrest that was out, I guess, somewhere in the East Side.

It wasn't like close to campus or anything. That's that was a really kind of quote unquote, nice buffet where like that's where the parents would always take the kids when they're in town.

Right. You or your jeans without the holes in them. I think they had four sons there. Yeah.

So that's an I'm frog legs. Right. You got anything else now? I'm going to feel like I owe it to myself to check out the buffet at some point soon on that soon. But like next year. Yeah. After the pandemic. Yes, for sure. If there's any left. Right. Well, since we talked about the pandemic passing everybody, that means of course it's time for listener mail. Let me see, I've got a few good ones here.

I'm going to call this changed life kiore guys, I'm writing because in an episode of your podcast helped me discover my life's passion and dream career. 10 years ago, I was a science obsessed 12 year old, listened to listening to stuff you should know frequently. And the episode that changed everything was how molecular gastronomy works. Remember that one?

Yeah, that's a strange life changing one. Go on.

The concept of breaking down the food to its molecular basis and reconstructing it into something unrecognizable from a sensory level blew my mind. You planted a concept in my head that inspired me. Ever since that year I did a presentation on h e r v e.

What is that, Hervé Vicious. Well, I don't know what that is. I don't either. I would say, wait, Herve, this, Echevarria, this. I don't know what that is. It sounds like it's a play on curb. This story here, Vishakha.

OK, I had this presentation for my class. I saved up until I could afford a kit of food activities. The following year, as Fortune had it, a school teacher informed me that the more practical version of molecular gastronomy is food technology. Uh, through a science fair, it was linked with a group of mentors with the New Zealand Institute of Food Science Technology through the ages of 14 to 16. My early networking from six years prior helped me secure an amazing first internship at one of New Zealand's largest food manufacturers this summer.

I still get giddy with excitement. I felt from that episode every day from studying non Newtonian fluid mechanics to experimenting with new stabilizers. A single episode has led me down a stem path that I wouldn't have discovered otherwise yet. So it suits me completely.

Man, that's amazing. Yeah, the gift of knowing what I am meant to do early on has pulled me through severe mental and physical illness.

I'm not sure I would have continued to pursue a field in STEM had I not known what was waiting for me. I think about how you guys change my life often. Sorry for not letting you know sooner. It's OK. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for pointing me in the direction of food technology. It is an invisible yet highly important undercoat of modern life that I would have never known without you.

And that is from Kizzie. Man you. Thank you. That was an amazing email. That's that, Chuck is exactly why we take every topic as seriously as the last assignment. Yeah, I think so. Because, I mean, you never know who what it's going to mean to somebody. And like even if you're like, oh, that was kind of interesting. There's somebody like Kizzie out there is like, well, that episode just changed my life.

So congratulations, Kizzie, on figuring out what you want to do in life so early. Best of luck and best wishes. And thank you very much for letting us know that that was great.

You never know. The next great buffet here might be listening to this very episode, right. Very nice. Well, if you want to get in touch is like Kizzie did or you think you're America's next great buffet here, we want to hear from you. You can send us an email, the STUFF podcast that I heart radio dot com.

Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio for more podcasts, my heart radio is at the radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Nearly 600 years after the invention of the printing press, the most important book in the history of the world has arrived.

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