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The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

thehustle.co

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Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#181

Post by GordonS »

BurningFrog wrote: post #150
derefr wrote: post #114

One nice thing about buffets—all-you-can-eat or not—is that, if you want, you can eat small portions of a wide variety of things, rather than large portions of a small number of dishes. The economics of a buffet are the only reason this is really possible; it’s not like you could place an order for e.g. “five breaded shrimp, three grams of braised pork, two wontons’ worth of wonton soup, ...” from a Chinese restauran…

The other nice thing is if you're on some unconventional diet (keto, vegan, kosher, etc), you can pick whatever fits your belief system that day.

I wouldn't be so sure about keto. Buffet restaurants rely on serving cheap ingredients, which essentially means carbohydrates.

Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#182

Post by drcode »

cbanek wrote: post #131

I've got to shill for yet another all you can eat Polish buffet in Chicagoland that has been open for 40+ years. Warsaw Inn. That buffet is really amazing. So good! Go there. Eat all the different kinds of pierogies. But also, they mostly just serve polish food, and I don't remember much if any seafood around either. It seems like for different types of buffets you'd have different food costs. Like a sushi buffet pro…

LOL that place is so far South you might as well call it an "Indianapolisland" restaurant.

Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#183

Post by drcode »

Jommi wrote: post #56

I'm still at awe of the Sushi Buffet thing that you can see all around in Helsinki, Finland. So far I have not seen anything like it, anywhere else in the world. Usually the price you pay is 10€ for an unrestricted and no time limit access to eating sushi. And the sushi is incredibly okay! It's nothing compared to stuff you find Tokyo ofcourse, but the price for quality is literally unbeatable. And all this is happen…

In Chicago I highly recommend Sushi Tokoro, it has everything you want from a sushi buffet: Great taste, reasonable price, and no food poisoning.

Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#184

Post by ska »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #140
katzgrau wrote: post #16

The only thing I found more interesting than all-you-can-eat buffets actually turning a profit is that there are business people who are apparently content running a business with such slim margins. This article quotes a 5% margin. I know food industry margins are low in the first place, but as a business owner in a different field I'm left wondering why anyone would even bother. The same business prowess and attenti…

Someone posted that the average margin for a public company in the US is 7.7%. There's an economic 'law' that basically states that the return on investment of a business in a mature market (read perfectly competitive) will always trend towards the interest rate (plus the cost of whatever sort of barriers to entry are in place) because of the arbitrage principle. If a business makes higher margins, everyone will pile…

Restaurants, outside of fast food and other large chain operation, probably average below this for various reasons (churn being a big one). I've heard that 5% is a good target.

In fact I suspect you can reasonably look at large chain operations as figuring out a way to reduce the factors that keep the average return lower than it "ought" to be...

Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#185

Post by exdsq »

fit2rule wrote: post #79
Jommi wrote: post #56

I'm still at awe of the Sushi Buffet thing that you can see all around in Helsinki, Finland. So far I have not seen anything like it, anywhere else in the world. Usually the price you pay is 10€ for an unrestricted and no time limit access to eating sushi. And the sushi is incredibly okay! It's nothing compared to stuff you find Tokyo ofcourse, but the price for quality is literally unbeatable. And all this is happen…

Reconstituted fish product (Surimi). You probably ate a ton of it. BTW, its really bad for the environment because it encourages overfishing.

I’ve been to a few sushi buffets in Helsinki and I can guarantee it wasn’t surimi after googling to see what that would look like. It was almost entirely salmon and tuna.

Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#186

Post by gesman »

Buffets are making money on impatient customers who are piling up on fries and mac-n-cheese and other super cheap "fillers" and junk foods before discovering and allocating space for more delicious and expensive dishes that are typically placed at the far end of a food isles.

This way they compensate the losses caused by my visit. I don't touch any food until i do complete walkaround and learn about everything they have to offer.

Then i typically pigout on lobster legs, tenderloin cuts, fish-rich sushi and other high end proteins, carefully avoiding any cheaper "fillers". My visit to buffet would cost me the equivalent of ~$200 visit in a-la-carte restaurant.

Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#187

Post by gradstudent »

BurningFrog wrote: post #150
derefr wrote: post #114

One nice thing about buffets—all-you-can-eat or not—is that, if you want, you can eat small portions of a wide variety of things, rather than large portions of a small number of dishes. The economics of a buffet are the only reason this is really possible; it’s not like you could place an order for e.g. “five breaded shrimp, three grams of braised pork, two wontons’ worth of wonton soup, ...” from a Chinese restauran…

The other nice thing is if you're on some unconventional diet (keto, vegan, kosher, etc), you can pick whatever fits your belief system that day.

Buffets are terrible places to eat for a vegan or even vegetarian. Options are typically limited to simple salads, various types of potato (fried, baked) and occasionally pizza or pasta: i.e. cheap tasteless carbs.

Besides limited variety, the other problem is you need to choose very conservatively. Lots of options have animal-derived ingredients and the staff are either clueless or there exists commonly a significant language barrier.

Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#188

Post by mattmanser »

ip26 wrote: post #159
lalaland1125 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quote from the Brian himself illustrating how he is able to "publish" so much junk research. > P-hacking shouldn’t be confused with deep data dives – with figuring out why our results don’t look as perfect as we want. With field studies, hypotheses usually don’t “come out” on the first data run. But instead of dropping the study, a person contributes more to science by figuring out when the hypo worked and when it…

Really? Suppose you just ran a twenty year, many million dollar field study, the hypothesis was not confirmed, you just throw everything out & that's that?

Yes because firstly, you didn't design the experiment for that reason, so you didn't consider what inadvertent biases you introduced for the "new" way of looking at the data. Plus on top of that, because of false positives, you're going to find a LOT of false positives by accident.

So every study "discovers" something new, but it's not because of biases and false positives.

Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#189

Post by hsyqiwgx »

GordonS wrote: post #181
BurningFrog wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other nice thing is if you're on some unconventional diet (keto, vegan, kosher, etc), you can pick whatever fits your belief system that day.

I wouldn't be so sure about keto. Buffet restaurants rely on serving cheap ingredients, which essentially means carbohydrates.

Crab legs and beef with broccoli come to mind.

Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

#190

Post by ygrechuk »

hsyqiwgx wrote: post #189
GordonS wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so sure about keto. Buffet restaurants rely on serving cheap ingredients, which essentially means carbohydrates.

Crab legs and beef with broccoli come to mind.

That sauce is loaded with sugar and corn starch.
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