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

[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.