A couple of years ago I took my kids to a writers conference at a beach resort. There was an all you can eat breakfast buffet. They both cried when the conference was over and they had to leave the buffet behind. Now, as if the end of the world weren’t enough, this damned plague might mean the end of the breakfast buffet altogether. Business Insider reports that a bunch of all-you-can-eat breakfast joints in the US have collapsed
• Plagued by bankruptcy filings, food poisoning incidents, and millennial disdain, buffets were struggling well before the coronavirus pandemic began.
• From 1998 to 2017, the number of buffet restaurants decreased by 26% while the number of overall restaurants grew by 22%
JB: “Goddamn it COVID-19, this time you’ve gone too far! You will take this dangerously oversized mountain-o’-bacon from my cold dead hands.
CV-19: <Shrugs> “Okay”.
I do wonder most days what the world will look like in a year’s time. I’d assumed that cafes, bars, cinemas, theatre, Big Sport, they’d all really struggle. But a world without buffets?
That is too apocalyptic even for me. I don’t know what to tell my children.
I took my kids to America when they were 4 & 8. At the time you asked what the best part of the holiday was.... Disneyland? - nope, Legoland? - nope, seeing snow for the first time? - no way - Hotels with Buffets for breakfast - end of humanity as we know it
I don't think Big Sport is going to suffer. Not when there's media empires fighting over broadcasting rights and betting agencies clamouring to sponsor them. Even the relevant governments are allowing exemptions to travel restrictions to allow the NRL to splutter back to life tonight
Reminiscing the last tropical daily brekkie buffet. A currawong would sneak in, sit quietly and eyeball the staff until they weren't looking, then hit the fruit platter. Oh boy, snacks to go.
I remember going to Valentines all you can eat in Auckland on my birthday so I ate free and fingered the margarine statue of a horse and licked it and my mum saying ‘we’re never coming back to this pigsty’ so I have dealt with the trauma of losing all you can eat a long time ago but this post is like memorial day for gluttony so thank you John xxx
Remember those really decadent breakfast buffets that you sometimes got, usually when someone else was paying? The ones with ALL the food, and a selection of spirits and champagnes just in case you wanted a vodka and orange or a glass of bubbles with your eggs?
I've gone on three cruises, and the buffet features strongly (and fondly) in my memories of each.
It feels like another, impossible, foolish world from today's perspective.
Some of the best buffet's ever:
* Sizzler. Full Stop. Cheesy toast.
* Sydney Tower. I can still remember watching my sister knock back a very, very large number of chocolate mousse serves on a legendary trip back in the 80's, all while revolving with a view of the city.
* Pizza Hut. Remember when these used to be eat-in venues with an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet?
* Dunk Island: nightly buffet dinners while on honeymoon. Even the seafood buffet was great.
my father used these things as an opporunity to get free tasties for his cat.
I took my kids to America when they were 4 & 8. At the time you asked what the best part of the holiday was.... Disneyland? - nope, Legoland? - nope, seeing snow for the first time? - no way - Hotels with Buffets for breakfast - end of humanity as we know it
Sigh. Yep.
I don't think Big Sport is going to suffer. Not when there's media empires fighting over broadcasting rights and betting agencies clamouring to sponsor them. Even the relevant governments are allowing exemptions to travel restrictions to allow the NRL to splutter back to life tonight
Reminiscing the last tropical daily brekkie buffet. A currawong would sneak in, sit quietly and eyeball the staff until they weren't looking, then hit the fruit platter. Oh boy, snacks to go.
Happened to me once. But with a magpie and my steak sandwich.
And let's not forget the Seafood buffet with their unscaleable mountains of prawns! What are all those restaurants at Sufferer's Paradise gonna do!?!
May have to steal Sufferer’s Paradise
All yours! :-)
"They both cried when the conference was over and they had to leave the buffet" bet they weren't the only ones.
We went to sizzler for xmas lunch just last xmas.
Going to be sad, and the Sofitel breakfast buffet.
Generally not a buffet person but the Langham in Melbourne is something to behold.
Park Hyatt in Canberra has, had?, a great breakfast with the most awesome Danish pastry tree
I remember going to Valentines all you can eat in Auckland on my birthday so I ate free and fingered the margarine statue of a horse and licked it and my mum saying ‘we’re never coming back to this pigsty’ so I have dealt with the trauma of losing all you can eat a long time ago but this post is like memorial day for gluttony so thank you John xxx
Remember those really decadent breakfast buffets that you sometimes got, usually when someone else was paying? The ones with ALL the food, and a selection of spirits and champagnes just in case you wanted a vodka and orange or a glass of bubbles with your eggs?
*single tear rolls down cheek*
I do, jacob. I do.
I've gone on three cruises, and the buffet features strongly (and fondly) in my memories of each.
It feels like another, impossible, foolish world from today's perspective.
Some of the best buffet's ever:
* Sizzler. Full Stop. Cheesy toast.
* Sydney Tower. I can still remember watching my sister knock back a very, very large number of chocolate mousse serves on a legendary trip back in the 80's, all while revolving with a view of the city.
* Pizza Hut. Remember when these used to be eat-in venues with an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet?
* Dunk Island: nightly buffet dinners while on honeymoon. Even the seafood buffet was great.
I once saw a guy eat a 'prawn ball' the size of his head at Tweed Heads golf club's buffet.
You just don't get prawn testicles like you used to.
Now I’m trying to comprehend wtf a Prawn Ball is. I’m imagining something the size of a basketball held together by toothpicks.
The size is right. I have no idea how it held together. I should have taken a photo.