Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crab legs and beef with broccoli come to mind.
That sauce is loaded with sugar and corn starch.
Crab legs is still pretty good. You're generally right though.
The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
191–200 of 272 posts
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#192"By 2030, the National Restaurant Association projects that 80% of all restaurant items will be eaten at home..." I doubt it. I'm not convinced that any of the delivery app companies are really making money; by 2030 they may not exist any more.
I mean delivery has always been a thing. Before the delivery-app-err it was maybe mostly pizza, but I don't see why delivery in general can't still be a major thing.
Also take out is always an option!
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#193A friend of mine, not a native speaker, calls them "eat all you can" buffets.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#194Vegetarian on diet: I eat at Golden Corral, only salad, watermelon, cole slaw, stir fried veggies (lot's of red bell peppers and some fresh pineapple), little rice, unsweetened tea - - and I only go from 2 pm to 4 pm weekdays when the price as $8 or $9 for senior, no charge for drink. It's pure torture to stay away from the dessert bar.
I cannot buy that variety anywhere for that price.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#195The danger for consumers is assuming this is a zero-sum and that the converse economic goal applies to you (i.e. assuming that the consumer benefits by eating a lot or focusing on meat). I conjecture that after factoring in the economics of health and quality of life, the economic optimum for a typical buffet consumer is the same as for any other eater: to eat sparingly and in a balanced manner.
Buffets feel like an unbounded solution to optimizing for calories per dollar, which is a ridiculous thing to focus on as an overweight engineer!
There is one other aspect about buffets: food is available quickly. This is primarily useful when traveling, if one wants to have warm food with significant cooked vegetable content (keeping in mind the aspects raised in other comment threads) without adding an hour or more to the trip.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#196"By 2030, the National Restaurant Association projects that 80% of all restaurant items will be eaten at home..." I doubt it. I'm not convinced that any of the delivery app companies are really making money; by 2030 they may not exist any more.
I mean delivery has always been a thing. Before the delivery-app-err it was maybe mostly pizza, but I don't see why delivery in general can't still be a major thing. Also take out is always an option!
It was never 80% of food though. It's not even really 80% today.
If VC funding were to dry up I'd imagine either the higher delivery fees or the higher order minimums of the past would come back, and then consumers would respond to prices and reduce ordering out.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#197I liked buffets a lot but in the last 15 years all but one buffet I liked to go to went dramatically downhill in quality. It is likely this was due to cost cutting measures to stay competitive. Eventually it got to where dishes and cutlery weren't even cleaned properly and I'd have to dig through a stack to find one without residue, and I was getting food poisoning about a quarter of the time. I simply had to stop going, they were bad, and unsafe. This is likely why there has been a mass purging of buffet chains nationally during this time period. It's not that the public has lost their interest in buffets, it's that people have noticed the quality is too low to be acceptable despite the price, which isn't a bargain anyway for any but those that game the system as is mentioned in the article, or for the ultimate in low cost places like all you can eat combination sushi-thai-vietnamese-mongolianBBQ-Chinese-italian-jello-mac'n'cheese lunch places only $4.99, or $3.99 if you use the pennysaver coupon.
Like the top comment mentions, some of us don't want to gorge ourselves, it's nice to have a variety of things to sample, but also buffets are useful for weekday lunch since you can be in and out with a full meal much faster than you can in a restaurant where you have to wait for your order.
One remaining buffet that's still good quality in my area is a certain classy Indian restaurant. They only do the buffet for lunch from 11-2, so it's impossible for people to come in and eat for 4 hours straight. Also there's almost no meat at all, so the restaurant doesn't appeal to those who come in to eat a pile of steaks. I've never seen anyone come and just eat plate after plate. People come because they can get good vegetarian food quickly for lunch.
High quality buffets will likely survive, but there's less of a market for them.
A successful hybrid model might be that of Olive Garden, which mixes reheated frozen food with unlimited breadsticks and salad, both which are extremely cheap to provide unlimited quantities of.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another trick is to keep drinks topped off. Fills you up.
Adding more salt to the food helps this path, but maybe I’ve just been too cynical and that day’s kitchen staff too heavy handed.
Salt makes food tastier and motivates you take another bite, which continues the cycle, so it's a good choice to put in the cheaper food by calorie/mass/volume/whatever-creates-satiety.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I recall correctly Walmart operates with low single digit margins for most goods. They make up for it with favorable vendor terms; I read that a can of green beans sold by WM will turn over 6 times before they have to pay the vendor for the first can.
> I read that a can of green beans sold by WM will turn over 6 times before they have to pay the vendor for the first can. I can't parse this but am curious what it means; can someone explain?
I believe he is talking about payment terms like "net 30 days". A made up example: Walmart buys a can of beans and promised to pay the seller 30 days later. During those thirty days, they buy five or six more order of beans to make up for that first sale and the other ongoing sales, each payment being thirty days later. During each of those 30 day periods, that cash is sitting in Walmart's pocket for them to invest etc.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052515/what-average... This article claims that banks make 24%, and they are hardly a monopoly. It also claims the overall average is 8.5%.
There are less than 5000 commercial banks in the united states and it is very rare a new one is approved. They've been consolidating and the total number declining for decades. Banking isn't a monopoly but it is a very limited, exclusive, club for those with lots of assets. After all, if you're a bank you can create new money supply out of thin air by lending out money you don't have (fractional reserve). A money pri…
Fractional reserve is lending out money people give the bank. it's not free money for the bank; the credit is balanced by a debt. You can do the same thing if you convince people to leave stuff at your house and then you rent it out.
Heck, every lessee on Airbnb is doing this.
As is everyone who has a mortgage and an investment account.