What All-You-Can-Eat Buffets Don't Want You To Know About The Food

Just the word buffet is enough to make many diners salivate, and the possibility for unlimited eating has become an emblematic staple of contemporary dining culture. Whether at restaurants or resorts, on cruise ships or cafeteria-style, whether for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner, buffets are everywhere, and many tantalize their patrons with their promise of "all you can eat." There are as many strategies behind getting the most for your buck at all-you-can-eat establishments as there are delights in the promise of theoretically unlimited dining. But to keep up with customers intent on maximizing their appetites, these eateries employ many strategies themselves, to keep costs down.

The self-serve dining phenomenon is regaining popularity, and there has been a resurgence of all-you-can-eat buffets in recent years. To accommodate increased demand, restaurants are employing as many profit-driven schemes as ever, some of them surprising, some unsettling. From inevitable contamination to excessive food waste, here are nine things that all-you-can-eat buffets don't want you to know about the food.

A lot of careful planning has gone into selecting the layout of most buffets, and there's a reason for everything to be the size that it is. Buffet plates typically have an unusual dimension that's a little smaller than a regular dinner plate. This is no mistake, but rather a highly cultivated strategy that plays into simple human psychology.

A study published in the scientific journal Food Quality and Preference revealed that when consumers imagine dinner servings, bigger plates result in nearly 25% larger portions. Another study from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine revealed that adults unconsciously serve themselves larger portions of ice cream when given bigger bowls and scoops. They average out at 31% more ice cream than those given smaller utensils, who unconsciously serve themselves less. Buffets utilize this unconscious human response to size to encourage guests to take smaller portions. Undersized buffet plates, consequently, limit the quantity diners can consume in any one serving. Not only do small plates require diners to seat themselves and finish a round before sampling an entire buffet, but they generally encourage smaller portions no matter how many times a guest might go back for more. 

Soft drinks can turn a big profit for restaurants, and that includes buffets. Because drinks are often sold separately from the all-you-can-eat meal price, they sneakily have much higher profit margins — up to a startling 90%. Though the plates at a buffet are almost always undersized, the cups available for fountain drinks are typically oversized. This is another strategy to steer patrons away from overindulging in food.

Guests typically have no limit on the amount of carbonated beverages they consume, which may lead to them filling up on liquids. And carbonation has an especially satiating effect, as the carbon dioxide that creates the bubbles in fountain drinks literally expands in the stomach, potentially leading to bloating and a sensation of already feeling full, especially when mixed with food. Filling up diners with soda — an item that's typically very cheap for restaurants to have on hand — is just another strategy to keep patrons from returning to the buffet table and consuming larger quantities of the food that costs restaurants more.

As a menu item that's typically on the costly side, seafood naturally draws the attention of buffet diners looking to get the most out of their all-you-can-eat flat rate. But an abundance of seafood generally suggests one of two possibilities. Testimonials have revealed that the fish may not be very fresh or high-quality, hence why it can be served in large amounts without costing a restaurant too dearly. If the fish is of better quality, however, buffets have a tendency to take extra action against diners who want to eat more than their fair share of these more expensive items laid on the table.

A few cases of customers consuming seafood to excess have made headline news in recent years. According to The Local, German triathlete Jaroslav Bobrowski was banned from an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant in 2018 for finishing off nearly 100 plates of fish. Elsewhere, a live streamer was banned from a buffet in Changsha, China in 2021, for having an appetite big enough to eat entire trays of food, causing the restaurant owner to lose a significant amount of money. Diners gorging themselves on seafood have caused an ongoing controversy over the true definition of "all you can eat," and it is still unclear which party is in the wrong. The question remains: Do buffets have the right to falsely advertise in order to stay in business, or do customers have the right to overindulge to get the most out of what they pay?

Besides offering a variety of unlimited dishes, buffets are also prime places for harboring germs. With hundreds of people passing through a dining room at any given mealtime, it's inevitable that microbes will spread. The less savory truth about self-serve restaurants that consumers don't often think about is the fact that bacteria come into direct contact with the food. One major red flag for any buffet is the unavoidable truth that hundreds of hands will be handling the same platters and serving utensils, and many of them may not have been washed. Not only does this likely contaminate food, but it encourages cross-contamination with uncontaminated food too.

Beyond the germs associated with handling food, buffets also invite contamination by the fact that the dishes are left sitting out for hours and cannot easily remain at the proper temperatures to ward off bacteria. The FDA advises that hot food be kept at a minimum internal temperature of 140 F and cold food at a maximum of 40 F, as these temperatures will ward off pathogens. Anything kept between 40 and 140 F is considered to be in the "danger zone," as this is the temperature range in which bacteria can easily grow and spread. Regardless, if either hot or cold food has been kept at an improper temperature for more than two hours, then it's at risk of being unsafe to eat.

While we may believe our food selection is completely based on personal whims, buffets do everything they can to influence what we decide to put on our plates. The placement of dishes in the lineup is highly strategic, since buffets want to keep customers from overindulging on foods made from more expensive ingredients — another way to keep costs down and profits up. Achieving this is fairly simple and plays once again into human psychology. According to a study discussed in the science and medicine journal PLOS ONE, 75% of buffet diners opt for the first foods on a buffet table, accounting for over 60% of the total food they consume throughout the course of their dining experience.

Buffets operate under this principle, that diners can't help loading up their plates with the first few dishes they see, which leaves little room for anything else. By simply placing more expensive items at the end of the buffet, restaurants trick many diners into filling up on cheaper dishes first. Navigating bread, pasta, and other starchy options ahead of the meats and seafood, customers are likely to pile their undersized buffet plates with filling carbs for their first round. Not only are diners forced to sit down and eat this food before returning for the more expensive items, but they will be less hungry when they go back for seconds too, making them less likely to overdo it on meats and other pricier dishes.

Among a buffet's many tricks for influencing customers' eating habits, a seeming lack of effort on the restaurant floor is often done on purpose. An abundance of dirty dishes is another of the biggest red flags to look out for with buffet dining, but this may not always mean that the restaurant is struggling to operate with an undersized staff. Leaving dishes to pile up on tables can also be an intentional strategy. Not only do restaurants save on staff paychecks by having fewer employees around to collect used buffet plates, but the accumulation of dirty dishes has a further psychological effect on diners' appetites that works to the restaurant's advantage.

Seeing dirty plates full of food remnants is an easy way to curb a diner's appetite. It might work by reminding consumers of how much they've already eaten, or by simply suppressing any desire to continue when presented with the unsavory sight of half-eaten food. By letting diners' dishes keep stacking up, many buffets discourage people from going back and eating more which, in the long run, leads to saving money.

While the vegetables presented at any buffet salad bar may generally be considered healthier options, thanks to their lower calorie content, they can be the corner of the buffet that's actually the most susceptible to health concerns for other reasons. Unlike meat or dairy, vegetables can last for long periods of time without going bad and are typically left out the longest at buffets. Furthermore, veggies are often reused if not consumed — either put out again the next day or repurposed into soups, casseroles, and other cooked dishes. Though this may be ideal for avoiding waste, it also means that any germs vegetables have attracted while being handled by buffet customers only have more time to grow. Additionally, produce going back and forth between the fridge and the salad bar over the course of several days is even more prone to bacteria because of the continuous shifts in temperature.

The fact that salad vegetables are typically served raw only puts them at a higher risk for carrying and spreading bacteria. Even if customer handling didn't inevitably lead to contamination, veggies might not be properly washed before being sliced. No cooking means there's no opportunity for heat to kill any lingering bacteria either and, as a result, salad bars are easy vessels for food-borne illnesses, so they might actually be best avoided at buffets. At least that leaves more room to fill up on the heartier stuff.

In addition to cost and quantity, variety is typically another of the all-you-can-eat buffet's selling points. That said, there are plenty of tempting foods in most lineups that may pose some alarming health risks when left out in traditional buffet style. Some of these may seem logical — sushi and cream-based dishes are among the buffet foods that are best avoided, as raw fish and dairy are particularly susceptible to spoiling if left sitting out for long periods of time. But there are other problematic buffet staples that might be more surprising. 

Tuna, for example, can be a bacteria magnet because it's meant to be kept at a lower temperature than other kinds of fish. Fried foods too, though certainly cooked, may be made with older meats or vegetables and therefore not be particularly fresh. Pre-sliced fruits are also something to be mindful of. If they haven't been washed properly before being sliced, bacteria can travel from the peel to the interior of the fruit and spread contamination, contributing to why unexpected good-for-you ingredients can actually make consumers sick. 

Sprouts are even more often a source of concern. Because they grow in moist environments, they are naturally susceptible to attracting bacteria long before they're served, and because they're difficult to wash thoroughly, contaminants are not always effectively removed. This is the same reason why nutritionists warn against grocery sprouts, as they're often a source of illness because they're so easily contaminated.

The problem with plentiful offerings at any buffet is that this leads to a great deal of food waste too. The principle of unlimited dining — getting the most out of any spread and prioritizing more variety — means that plenty is likely to be left uneaten. As a strategy to beat the buffet, guests often intentionally don't eat everything on their plates. Additionally, only about half the food put out for a buffet spread typically gets consumed.

Unfortunately, after a day of sitting out, most of this remaining uneaten food is no longer fit for human consumption. Only around 10-15% of these leftovers, according to the New York Times, can safely be repurposed. The rest ends up directly thrown out. This is a waste management problem that's not easily remedied based on the current eating-to-excess principles of buffet dining. However, there are a few useful strategies which have helped buffets diminish some food waste. Offering foods in pre-prepared individual servings rather than self-serve bulk dishes helps prevent guests from taking more than they can finish, and keeping warm foods in chafing dishes to preserve the necessary internal temperature allows them to stay edible longer, ultimately limiting waste.