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

[ASTalumna06]

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

[SOPi_Jawbreaker]

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

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

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.

[summer_gphib]

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.

[AnchorAlumna]

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.

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.

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

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

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.

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.

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.

[NutBrnHair]

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!

[pbear19]

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. That's incredibly far from the truth as I've witnessed it.

[agzg]

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

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.

Did you ever go to Imperial China Buffet on upper Peach? When I was in undergrad (at the same time as you), my friends and I would go there almost every Sunday morning (which was really afternoon) - we thought it was the best hangover food we'd ever have. It's either taken a huge downturn or our palettes have matured because we tried going there once this summer after a bachelorette party and most of us hated the food and ended up sick by the end of the day - how did we eat that crap???