America's Largest Buffet Isn't Where You Would Think

Americans love their buffets. It makes sense — where else can you sample a huge variety of foods in unending portions, which are two things U.S. residents absolutely love? And for decades, there has been a singular epicenter for buffets in America: Sin City itself, Las Vegas, Nevada. It makes sense; Vegas's whole deal is excess, excess, and more excess, and what's more excessive than literally all the food you can eat? Even though you can find buffets in every small town in America now, ranging from Chinese to Italian to Indian to the Golden Corral, Vegas was for decades the place to be when it came to buffets. 

But the wild thing is, the biggest buffet in America right now isn't in Vegas, nor is it anywhere remotely close to Nevada. Somehow, Sin City has been unseated in sheer singular buffet spectacle by a perhaps unlikely source: Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

The biggest buffet in America (or at least one of them), it turns out, is located nearly as far as you can get from Nevada in the continental United States: Shady Maple Smorgasbord in Lancaster, PA. With a 200-foot buffet (not a typo), Shady Maple features a lot of classic American-style food like smoked chicken, BBQ ribs, steak, sausages, fried shrimp, and potatoes. It's a wild feast for the senses (not to mention an actual feast) that somehow only clocks in at $13-29 depending on when you go.

Here's the thing, though: maybe it shouldn't be surprising that something like Shady Maple isn't in Nevada, because Vegas's status as the buffet king has more recently been falling by the wayside. Today, only eight buffets remain on the Las Vegas Strip where there were once 18 — and the ones left are all extremely high end. The COVID pandemic was a big part of this, unsurprisingly, as buffets aren't exactly the ideal social distancing environment, but it was starting even before then. Today, a lot of casinos — the traditional location for Vegas buffets — are opting for "food halls," essentially a pay-as-you-go experience designed to help profit margins.

Though the buffet seems like a modern American institution now, its origins go back further. Though there is a long history of buffet-style eating at European banquets, the buffet is closest to an invention from Scandinavia. The Swedish had long often served a brannvinsbord at group gatherings — essentially an alcohol-and-snacks aperitif spread before the meal. But in the 18th century, the Swedish adapted this into a type of meal in and of itself, a term you may be familiar with: smorgasbord. Americans got their first taste of this new type of eating at the 1939 World's Fair.

But though buffets may have come from elsewhere originally, during the 20th century, America adopted them to a degree unparalleled by the rest of the globe. As far as anyone can tell, the first truly American buffet was the Buckaroo Buffet, created in the 1940s in — where else — Las Vegas. Set in the El Rancho Hotel and Casino, the design was simple: keep people in the casino longer with the idea that they'd eat and then head right back to the tables. It didn't take long for the concept to become popular outside of the Vegas environment, though, with buffet popularity reaching its apex in the "more, more, more" '80s. But though buffets were long associated with Vegas, it seems their time has come and gone there — and maybe in a lot of places other than Shady Maple.