"All you can EAT!" A regional/state thing?
 

I've been posting and lurking on internet discussion boards for over five years. I've read numerous threads about restaurants. Mostly about favorite ones and recommendations. I've noticed in these threads, that buffets or restaurants that have reputations for cheap large quantities of food are almost never mentioned. Restaurants are usually noted for its superior service, atmosphere, quality of food, and/or creative recipes.

However, the people I know in real life, how much food you get on your plate is a restaurant's biggest selling point. An example, I overheard some people in the mall deciding on where they wanted to go to dinner. The choice was between a fancy lounge with live perfomances and well-prepared food, and a couple of other restaurants in the same area. Well, they decided to go to PONDEROSA! They wanted to get full and not spend too much money. Going by their appearance, mannerisms, and things they purchased in the store...they were NOT poor, though. So that reason was ruled out.

I've interacted with all kinds of people within the last 10 years of my life...people who were financially well off, poor people from the inner city, country people from rural areas, Greeks, hipster kids, people of different races and ethnicities, you name it. They all have one thing in common, they all (well, in general) are fond of Applebee's, Culpepper's, fast food, Ponderosa, Old Country Buffet, Golden Corral...or any other place you get a lot of food for cheap. And most of these people are from Missouri or Illinois.

What I'm trying to say is that I notice there's a HUGE difference in restaurant preferences, between the people I see online (many who are from the east or west coast) and people I see in real life. I just wonder if this is a regional thing. I think so, but I don't really know, since I've never been on either coast.

Speaking as a Washingtonian, we have a lot of fast food and a lot of restaurants in the city. We have a TGIFriday's near GW. But I honestly can't think of any buffets or cafeteria style places with "All you can eat" for one price in the city.

In the suburbs, sure.

I don't think I am high fallutin. I know if given the choice between the inexpensive buffet 20-30 minutes away, and the pretty good sit-down restaurant with the jazz quartet that's only ten minutes away, I am gonna choose the latter. (Unless I am specifically in the mood for fast food)

HOWEVER, we do have places in DC that are cafeteria style but NOT all you can eat. You pay based on the weight of the meal. I'm sure those are everywhere. We have Sizzling Express and Epicurean & Co.

I am in New England, and I have to say that there are few buffet style restaurants in my area. Chinese restaurants aside, I have only seen one Old Country Buffet, and maybe years ago, a Ponderosa. As far as eating at Crapplebees...ick.

I admit to an annual hankering for a Chili's fajita and Molten Chocolate Cake, but usually go the mom and pop places if we eat out. Of course, that's much less often than it used to be, thanks to the economy. If I am famished and at the mall, I usually get chicken teryaki with white rice from Sarku. If I am on the road, Subway or fast-food chicken sandwiches are my choices.

When I visit my inlaws in Arkansas, there are buffets everywhere. This one place I went to, Monteney (sp) Chicken, had what I think was all-you-can-eat. Although I love (LOVE) fried chicken, my health situation now dictates what I can eat, so my admission price was kind of wasted. When I was younger, I was always able to eat in large quantities, in fact due to my health, I HAD to eat a lot of food to keep me going. Nowadays, I can't even get through half my meal. Thank goodness doggy bags are acceptable!

We used to go to Ponderosa and Old Country Buffet a lot because we could feed the kids cheap with their pricing structure. The kids only wanted the buffet. Now, they really like those two places because of a few favorite foods. We went to a few buffets on vacation because they were considerably cheaper than the sit down places. I especially like breakfast buffets because for breakfast I'd like ONE pancake or piece of french toast, plus eggs, plus some meat and maybe some hash browns, etc. I don't want a full serving of pancakes or one huge omelet.. just my breakfast preferences I guess. When I do eat at a buffet, I generally just eat a meat and a couple sides anyway, so it doesn't really matter anymore. What I found funny was that at the buffets where we went on vacation, they all had signs on them that said "Take all you want but please eat all you take"

This has been my experience as well. There are a few nicer restaurants that do lunch buffets (a couple of Indian restaurants, and a Brazilian place), but other than that, all-you-can-eats are rare. They were much rarer in the Boston area than in CT, where you see one in almost every town.

The rural area where I lived in Tenn. was BIG on buffets - as my father said, they liked good eatin', not fine dining. I found the food to be mediocre at best.
Here in Houston, there is Pancho's Mexican Buffet - you can raise a little Mexican flag at your table to get more food. My high school students used to love CiCi's pizza - blech. Luby's cafeteria is not all-you-can-eat - in fact, most of the old-timey Southern cafeterias (Luby's, Furr's, Morrison's, Picadilly) are NOT all you can eat. And in my experience, the food is good.
I hate all-you-can-eat because I can't eat much - that, and the quality is just not good.

These kinds of places are usually in suburban areas where there are a lot of overweight/obese people who love getting full for a cheap price.

Not too many of these where I'm at, although there is a Picadilly's near my house (cafeteria style but not "all you can eat").

All the Ponderosas in Miami are closed by now. There's a Golden Corral about 15 minutes from my house in a very suburban suburb and sure enough the few times I've visited most of the people there are of the *larger* crowd.

Just speaking the truth.

I don't think there's too many all-you-can-eat buffet places around here. The only ones I can think of are a Chinese buffet, an Old Country Buffet, and a Japanese buffet. I go to the Japanese buffet once in a while. I prefer going to regular Japanese restaurants (better sashimi, more special rolls) but it can get quite pricey.

I don't go to the Old Country Buffet. And I've only been to the Chinese buffet once. The food was meh.

I love KFC buffet.

you should hang out with less fat people

your internet friends are cooler than your real life ones

I miss Pancho's!! I used to love lifting the flag, and the song they used to play on your Birthday! lol.

Your Furr's is NOT all you can eat? We have at least 3 here, and they are all, "all-you-can-eat."

We have A LOT of all you can eat buffets. I would definitely NOT call Applebee's, Chili's etc. "all-you-can-eat."

The "all-you-can-eat" places we have are: a few Chinese buffets, Furr's, a few Mexican buffets, Golden Corral, Cici's Pizza. That's all i can think of at the moment.

It has been so long since I have been to Furr's - I noticed they still have one in San Marcos - that I may well be mistaken, and they are all-you-can-eat.

When I was living in Missouri (back in the late 1980s), I came home to Dallas for a visit. My friends took me to Panchos (I love me some Panchos - it's nasty but in a good way) for lunch and asked the manager if they could have the flag. He said yes, and they gave it to me. It's been 20 years -- I still have the flag; I keep it in my guest bedroom.

While they have the usual Chinese buffet on every corner her in Connecticut, they don't have cafeterias -- like Furrs, Picadilly or Luby's -- up here. My mom came up from New Ulm (Texas) to visit and she was floored that we didn't have cafeterias. I guess it's a Southern thing.

I never knew that KFC had a buffet until I saw one in Arkansas. I have to say, that KFC there is tastier than around here. Even at the one here, there's something about that secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices that makes my mouth water...:p

<3<3<3

I grew up in New England, and there really aren't that many buffet-styled restaurants around there. And if there are, I never found them.

Between college, and now 2 years following that, I've lived in Pennsylvania for about 6 years, and buffet-styled restaurants are everywhere. Golden Corral, Ponderosa, Old Country Buffet, etc. As to whether or not people PREFER to eat there, I don't know.

I've also traveled up and down the east coast, from Maine to Florida, and a whole bunch of places in between, and I've never run across any of these restaurants that I've seen in PA.

Maybe it's a middle-of-the-country kind of thing :o

Quite possibly. They closed the Ponderosa around here YEARS ago. It was right by the King of Prussia mall and they were trying to make that area more upscale. Now, the steakhouses in and around the mall are Morton's, Sullivan's, and Ruth's Chris.

Since I hadn't seen any Ponderosa's for several years, I thought they had gone out of business until I went up to Penn State and saw one there.


We also no longer have Denny's or Friendly's around here, but we do have tons and tons of TGIFriday's, Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday's, and Chili's.

The last time I ate at a Golden Corral I got food poisioning so bad I could barely move for a week. (I must say I did lose 11 lbs. though.)

We don't go to all-you-can-eat places often, because here they are just okay. We usually go because I'm a salad fanatic, and there are precious few places around here that have salad bars. (Ruby Tuesdays is pretty good and Sonnys.) We usually save upscale places for special occasions.

In my little city, we have Mama Blues (owned by the Barnhills, the folks who started the old Barnhill's AYCE chain), and Ryan's, briefly known as Fire Mountain, which used to be a steak place that turned itself into an AYCE place.

I call these places "troughs," because you go to the feeding trough to fill your plate. It's always fun to count the ENORMOUS people bellying up to the buffet. They're usually eating when we arrive and still eating when we leave.:eek:

Nevertheless, there are reasons to go to these places (which are NOT cheap!). First, you have kids, who are hungry and have to eat RIGHT NOW. Second, you have a large number of people who each want something different. Third, you're in a hurry and want to eat RIGHT NOW. Fourth, you're sick of fast food and want a salad and/or some veggies.:cool:

FWIW, our Applebee's used to be grim, but they have a new cook and the food has greatly improved.:p

So typical of Americans.

I avoid the all-you-can-eat buffets. I much prefer a locally-owned restaurant with unique food and smaller portions -- and so do 90% of my friends.

Buffets usually aren't my thing. The only time I'll really eat at a buffet is breakfast/brunch...they don't make me nervous the way dinner buffets do. We have Old Country Buffet around here, but I've never been to one. Other than that, the only buffets I can think of around here are chinese food and sushi buffets, the sushi buffets being very popular. The one buffet that is AWESOME is weekend brunch at Salty's in Seattle, which is gourmet fancy shmancy (http://www.saltys.com/food_wine/best_brunch.asp)

As someone who has lived in 2 of the fattest states in the union (TN and TX) and someone who lived in the #2 fattest city in America (Dallas) I have certainly seen a buffet restaurant or two in my time.

Loved reading the stories about Pancho's. Haven't been there since I was a kid, but raising the flag was always a highlight.

I do avoid the Golden Corral type places, but have ventured into some of the "better" (relative term) Chinese buffets. This is not because I want some huge portion, but rather I enjoy a "sampler" platter. Just a few bites of many different menu offerings.

Because I have a toddler, we do find ourselves regularly in a Cici's. Keeps him happy and I have had worse. (the key here is to ask for a specific type of pizza, which they are happy to make special for you. Then no one else has sneezed on it, touched it, etc.)

Dallas had a decent all you can eat Sushi place, and they also had Fogo de Chao which is a nice Brazillian meat fest with locations in larger cities across the US. So I won't paint all buffets/all you can eats with the same brush.

What really makes me ill are watching the people in the all-U-can-eat lines on Cruises... they are a breed all their own and really do personify the "fat and lazy American." Observing those cows is far worse than anything that I have seen at the Chinese buffet or Cici's, and that is saying a LOT!

I've been known to call Golden Corral "the hog trough" in my days, because that's EXACTLY what it is. The hometown fatties love it.

Unique food? :rolleyes: I tend to avoid places that advertise "unique cuisine," as the prices at those places tend to be as inflated as the culinary egos and the snobbery. That, and the food is rarely if ever "unique."

I'll eat wherever my family and I are in the mood to eat. Sometimes that's a nice restaurant, sometimes it a place that's quick and easy. Sometimes it's a local hangout, sometimes it's a chain. Sometimes it's a place to get dressed up for, sometimes I'm peeling my own shrimp. Sometimes it's "American cuisine," sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's even a buffet (which can be a plus with kids) -- either the "trough" kind or the Sunday after-church very nice kind.

Every restuarant may not have good food, but good food can be found in any kind of restaurant -- even the troughs.

I'm getting all misty-eyed reading about Pancho's! Oh, those sour cream enchiladas, and the sopapillas. Mmm. When I lived in Atlanta there was a restaurant with a salad and dessert buffet that always had a mountain of chocolate mousse. We loved it for chapter functions.

I also live in New England, and the only buffets we see in my area are lunch buffets at Indian and Chinese restaurants. When we travel and eat at a really quality place, my husband always says that we need to open a good restaurant in town. I remind him that there wouldn't be a market for it with all the people lining up outside Olive Garden to wait an hour for unlimited soup and breadsticks.

I think the last time I went to a Ryan's/Golden Corral/Western Sizzler type place was 20 years ago in Milledgeville, GA. I went to lunch with two of my grad school professors. After witnessing one of my professors wiping her soup bowl clean so she could fill up the same bowl with dessert....I had had enough. Oh, but there was more. She asked me if I was going to eat any of the dinner rolls. I said, "no," and she proceeded to stuff the rolls in the plastic bag which had been wrapped around her silverware!

Fair enough.
 

I really meant more -- well-prepared food or a place that gives a twist to a traditional dish.

Truly, I love the fine dining experience as much as a burger at a local hole-in-the-wall place.

I totally agree with you!! I try to stay away from places that say "unique cuisine" or "authentic _____ cuisine." The summer I turned 15, I was traveling to Dallas with my family. As we passed Midland, we decided to stop and grab some food. We found a restaurant that said "authentic Mexican food." Well we didn't think anything of it, so we went in to eat. It was THE WORST food i've ever had. And totally NOT Mexican at all. the flautas were eggrolls, the quesadilla my cousin ordered was just one large tortilla chip covered in Velvetta. I shudder just thinking about it.

I hate it when people claim to know how to cook certain foods (well mainly Mexican food) but it's totally wrong.

I worked at a Ponderosa for three years in college, and trust me when I say that the overweight to healthy weight ratio was no different inside the restaurant than anywhere else I've seen in America - including at the gym! There are some very uninformed posts in this thread about buffet restaurants and overweight people. As a matter of fact, my customers who ate the most were athletic younger guys. Generally people who really piled food on their plates left most of it when they were done. I cannot tell you how much food gets thrown away at a buffet!

The only buffet restaurants I personally eat at are Sweet Tomatoes and a local Indian restaurant. But I'm not so much of a snob that I would say (or imply) that all people who frequent buffet restaurants like Ponderosa and Golden Corral are fat country folk. :rolleyes: That's incredibly far from the truth as I've witnessed it.

I think this is worth mentioning. I'm no food snob, and i'm quite a glutton. Probably 1 out of 6 or 7 of my posts are about food.

I like large amounts of food, and I prefer to have it for cheap...but I wouldn't compromise quality for quantity or price.

I agree with MysticCat, you'll find good food at most type of places. I'm just weirded out by people who ONLY stick to chains and buffets, which seem to be the trend in Missouri, Illinois (except chicago), and some parts of the south. There's so much more out there.

And I'd completely agree on that.

Interesting. I never thought to judge a restaurant, much less a whole catagory of restaurants, by the bad manners or boorish behaviors of my dining companions. ;)

After growing up in Texas with a fondness for Mexican food, I ventured to Virginia for graduate school.

Not long after arriving I was lamenting that I was really missing some good Mexican food. A friendly classmate, who was from Baltimore, tried to be helpful: "What do you mean there is no Mexican food here... we have a Chili's!"

Sigh.

If there is not a huge tub of lard involved in making my flour tortillas, then they ain't tortillas. Bonus points if the lady making them is the matriarch of the family and doesn't speak a lick of English. Love those sweet ladies....

Oh, don't analyze it too much -- I was just sharing a funny story.

My dislike of buffet-type restaurants is much more deep-seeded than from just this situation. ;)

Tex-Mex rules to live by -

1.) Understand that Tex-Mex is not Mex-Mex. Mexico has a rich and varied cuisine, which bears little resemblance to Tex-Mex.

2.) You cannot get good Tex-Mex outside of Texas. Yes, the restaurant may be owned by Mexicans, but that does not mean the food will be up to true Tex-Mex standards. I cannot count the bad experiences I have had all over the country because well-meaning friends are convinced I will LOVE their local Mexican restaurant. Thanks for trying - I need to go home to Texas.

3.) A good Tex-Mex restaurant makes their own tortillas (by HAND, not machine) and fries said tortillas to make chips. Bagged chips = NO. Salsa or pico out of a jar = no.

4.) Fajitas are made of skirt steak or chicken. Lobster fajitas are an abomination.

Herbert's Taco Hut in San Marcos is just about PERFECT - started as a Mexican grocery, started selling prepared food, added on to the grocery store in several stages. It is like a rabbit warren. Black velvet painting of Jesus amongst the cosmos over the jukebox, little Mexican women patting out the tortillas, two beer limit with dinner, and CHEAP as free. Yummmm. . . it is also out of the way, so tends to draw a local crowd. I need me some cheese enchildas now.

Ewwww.....As much as i like certain "tex-mex" concoctions, it still isn't Mexican food, and shouldn't be claimed as such.

Ever been to Puerto Nuevo? Some of the best Mexican food I've ever had -- and lobster is their specialty!

http://www.bajalife.com/bordercrossi...nglobster.html

...but, I do know what you're saying -- it always makes me laugh when I see a "spinach & mushroom burrito" on the menu of an authentic mexican restaurant.

Oh, and I would dearly LOVE to experience Herbert's in San Marcos someday!

I absolutely HATE buffet style places. Of course being drug to Golden Corral on Sunday's after church when I was little and watching my fat uncles raid the meat buffet embarrassingly probably attributed to this. There are TONS of buffet style places in my region. The fat rednecks probably make up 90% of the revenue I'm sure. The last buffet I ventured to was the "Crazy Buffet" in Tampa. Of course we were only down there for a Bucs game (GO BUCS!!!) so I wasn't going to be picky. It was basically a spruced up Chinese Food buffet. I'm not a heavy eater so I never get my money's worth, but I spent a good 10 minutes lingering around the chocolate fountain =).

That's why it is Tex-Mex, and strictly Mexican food is Mex-Mex. :)

My aunt married into a large Mexican family, and "Mama" taught her to make authentic Mex-Mex food. It is AMAZING.


eta - here's a link - scroll down to see Herbert's. Oh - and The Green Parrot, infamous Gamma Phi hang-out "back in the day".
http://www.texcenproperties.com/san-...photo-tour.htm

I must admit that I do enjoy the occasional Tex-Mex food, like fajitas or a quesadilla (made w/ Muenster cheese, cause that's the only kinda cheese i like)

This reminds me of the post someone made on GC, that encouraged the AGDs (i believe) to go to a certain restaurant in San Antonio while they were on convention. The poster said something about guacamole not being made w/ mayonnaise and I almost barfed. I hate guacamole to begin with, but i can't imagine it with mayonnaise. I double barfed when i turned on the food network and Sandra Lee (blah) was making an "authentic Mexican" white bean guacamole. Yeah, "authentic" guacamole does not include beans of any kind.