How to you feel about AYCE buffets?

Friend,

The buffet or smorgasbord may be one of the last expressions of American abundance remaining in this time of inflation and rising costs.’There is something wonderfully democratic in standing before an abundance of food and being permitted to take what you want. At Golden Corral the accusation of lifeless, standing food is particularly difficult to sustain. You can watch the steaks being cooked before your eyes. The pot roast, fried chicken and fried shrimp are replenished every few minutes. In the morning, eggs and omelets are made to order while pancakes and French toast hiss upon the griddle as you enter. This is not food awaiting a funeral. It is food continually becoming.

And perhaps that is the deeper beauty of the buffet. It does not ask you to pretend that abundance is shameful and gluttonous. It simply places abundance before you. No one is judged by the table and there is room for appetite and second helpings, those human impulses that polite society has spent centuries attempting to conceal beneath linen napkins.

The buffet is America because it believes that there ought to be enough. It is excessive and democratic and miraculous. A table is continually being replenished. The waitress is non-intrusive and present to clean your table, not make small talk or bring you anything but order. And if you are hungry, you simply go back.

While I despise everything about today’s Las Vegas, I can say that the city’s one and only positive contribution to the world is the buffet, which ought to be called the smorgasbord. Had it been given that name instead I think far fewer would take issue with this style of freedom.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Loved them as a teenager/ young adult. Don't have much use for them now.

Additionally, they are a haven for pathogenic viruses and bacteria...

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How to you feel about AYCE buffets?

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as the late and lamented tom Fitzmorris would say, “you may have all of mine”

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Senior citizen's colostomy bag wakes him up at 2:30am, decides to pontificate about all you can eat buffets on the internet. Got to love TigerDroppings..

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Nope, just don't sleep much.

There was an AYCE Popeye's near Tanger Mall in Gonzales, it was amazing, albeit short-lived. The workers at the chem plants in the area would come in and really chow down. Then there was a turnarount at BASF, hundreds of workers from all over the country poured into the area. At lunch Popeye's had a line out the door, The AYCE lasted about a week until they surrendered and went back to regular ordering.

The last one was at the Lafayette exit on I-10, Anthony Bourdain sung it's praises as his favorite chicken joint in the world. Unfortunately, the buffet there shut dow a few years ago.

The first smorgasbord I saw were the Scandinavian ones in the upper Midwest, interesting, but the offerings were so bland I had to pass.

I still love em, mainly because I'm a glutton with a huge appetite.

If they are ok and clean, I love them….

Chinese, Thai, Indian, or any ethnic food I like bc sometimes I don’t know what the heck the dishes are and get to try them all

Pizza ? Hell yea

Golden Colleli, etc….. I’ll probably pass
These days, unless a throwback Ryan’s popped up….