From what I hear, there are still 5~10 dollar all-you-can-eat buffets in Las Vegas. But the only crab you’ll get there is the kind that you’ll need a special medicated cream to get rid of.
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Mom and I got stuck going on an hours-long road trip to some middle of nowhere outlet mall, with Grandma and her sister Aunt June. The journey itself was almost unendurable, with dear, sweet, utterly clueless Junie¹ going on and on about the problems of people whom we’d never meet.
The mall was less than worthless. Every store we entered had absolutely nothing on offer which tempted Mom & I. None of the shoe stores (??!!), not even the place selling only towels. [No woman in my family, other than yr humble narrator, was ever able to resist towels for some reason.] June and Grandma each bought a couple things, but the mall also disappointed them. They even said they’d never bother with it again, esp given the distance. Mom and I shared a furtive glance that quickly went from surprise to relief.
Aunt June had seen a sign for one of those big buffet joints on our way to the mall, and got all excited, insisting we stop there on the way back. She ranted and raved about how great their food was, as Mom and I exchanged frightened looks and said nothing. I can’t remember which one it was, but it wasn’t golden corral. (Ye gods, could they have come up w/a more stupid name?!) Maybe it was Olde Countrye Buffete.
Mom and I chose items we figured were the safest bets, but OMFG, everything was thoroughly bland and tasteless. While June and Grandma cleaned their plates, raving about how good everything was, Mom and I took only a bite or two of what we had, b/c just couldn’t choke it down. How do you fuck up *Corn On The Cob?!*² That joint has the secret. Hope they kept it to themselves. Even the stuffing was awful!
Mom fought back laughter when I quietly told her, “This ice water’s delicious!”
I got a soft-serve ice cream cone, and couldn’t even eat that! I threw it in the trash after 2-3 attempts. Were I 13 instead of around 30 when this so-called meal happened, I probably would have cried, esp had it been That Time of the Month.
Mom and I cooked something far more palatable and edible as soon as we finally got home.
We often went to Hudson’s (a now long gone dept store) restaurant for their Sunday buffet when I was little, but that was excellent. Lots of salads, including a very tasty ham salad; many delicious choices for main courses; and their “bread” pudding was homemade butterscotch, with big chunks of frosted cake in! It was all quite civilized, with both customers and staff being very well-behaved.
¹Aunt June was a beautiful, sweet, amusing lady, and I’d’ve fought to the death for her. One of my closest high school friends fell in love with her right away, when we’d dragged him along to a family gathering. He and I sneaked off for a much-needed j [OMG you have NO idea, you lucky people!], and he said, “I love Aunt June. She’s just…wonderful. She is the sweetest, nicest, and the least intelligent person I have ever met.”
Mom’s 2nd husband said the exact same thing when he met Aunt June, and Mom about fell out laughing. 
²I know what you’re thinking, b/c you’re smart and logical. It was not at all over-boiled. It was plump and beautiful, and each kernel was both crisp and tender, just like the best stuff. So very weird. They must have started with the most tasteless-est corn ever developed, and it all went strangely downhill from there. Salt and butter made no difference…not for anything else on our plates, neither.
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Can’t it just be an example of “pay once and eat whatever you want” ?
Having to perform a financial transaction, in advance, for each little thing—that sounds more stereotypically American
I have been eating at Red Lobster on-and-off for almost 30 years. I have never seen a buffett at any of the locations I frequented. The Festival of Crabs promotion was brought to your table to order.
I never took advantage of the promotion because to be honest, I don’t like shelling crabs.
Heck, I don’t even like lobster. I go to Red Lobster for the shrimp and cod.
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I’ve only ever been to a carvery (much the same thing as a buffet) once in my life and will never go again.
I was stuck in the queue behind the bloke who, for some unfathomable reason, let fly tiny gobs of spit as he spoke to his wife, which was constantly. “Nope, not having the spuds, nor the brussels” etc. The final straw was when he used his thumb to wipe stuffing onto his plate from the serving spoon.
I put my plate back and ordered something else straight from the kitchen.
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Dunno if the chain still even exists, but Grandma and Aunt June were also big fans of The Sign of the Beefeater, later Beefcarver. It was the ideal place for anyone who liked standing in line with people like the brute you describe (shudder); preferred bland potatoes in a wide range of styles; loved limp, overboiled veg; and enjoyed fighting with tough, chewy, overdone roast beast entirely lacking in flavor. The gravy was watery, lumpy, and pathetic.
You’d tell the folks at the steam table what you wanted, and they’d serve you, so at least one was spared some jackass’s thumb smears. (shudder)
ETA: Mentions of buffets often remind me of a wonderful sci-fi tale from a YA anthology I had in grade school. The book is called Children of Infinity (and I highly recco it for SF-loving kids from 2nd or 3rd thru 7th-ish gd), and the story is All You Can Eat by Harvey L. and Audrey L. Bilker.
A young alien is sent to Earth to, well, Consume Mass Quantities, which is somehow transmitted back to his home planet and feeds the starving populace. It’s often funny, esp when he’s eating the whole chickens straight outta the freezer.
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I don’t know where you’re based, but here in the UK there is a chain of them still going strong - Beefeater.
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That may be why ours in Michigan were changed to Beefcarver.
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My knowledge of US geography isn’t great, but isn’t Vegas quite a long way away from the sea? And people still trust sea food there?
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Frozen seafood.
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Most other articles about the 2003 crab promotion dont mention “buffet”. Only the article cites in this post mentions a buffet. So it was likely being brought to the table, as you say.
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“It seemed like a good idea at the time!”
The reason I find a buffet desirable isn’t the available quantity but the variety. It’s possible to get a reasonably sized meal with lots of different tastes, but not pay 200$ for the privilege. Going out for dim sum is the same thing-a huge variety of small servings to share.
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Exactly. There used to be a local buffet that gave you a glass plate for salad, one large white plate for your main meal, and then there was a dessert station. They would bring your plates to the table, then you would go to the buffet. Prices were comporable to a local Applebee’s but you could sample a really wide variety of things at one low price.
Yes you could use your white plate at the salad station, but you couldnt bring your glass plate to the main meal station. There was a monitor at the stations to watch for those who were going back for more.
They closed though when covid hit and havent reopened.
Michigan? Remember Sveden House Smorgasbord? Or Harbor House all you can eat seafood?
I worked at Harbor House when I was a teenager. I worked my way up to a fry cook and made a whooping 6 bucks an hour which earned me an arm full of burns from the hot oil splattering me and a permanent scar on my right hand from cleaning the prime rib slicer.
Harbor House was all you can eat but it was waitress service. Your initial order was a specific portion and then if you wanted more you asked your server and they would bring you more but a much smaller portion.
I saw servers get fired for bringing out 2 pieces of chicken or 3 crab legs instead of the required portions.
In other words you could eat all you wanted but you had to work for it and make your server work for it.
They also made the mistake of storing the beer kegs in the walk in cooler where the salads were prepped. A keg fit nicely in a garbage can, toss some salad prep waste on top and you could walks kegs out the back door right under the nose of the kitchen supervisor. We also figured out that the liquor closet was an easy mark if you crawled across the drop through ceiling. Cases of liquor made their way out the backdoor as well.
We were baaaad kids and never got caught. Thank goodness cameras weren’t a thing way way way back then.
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I do remember Sveden House but don’t recall ever being there. Never hit Harbor House. Sounds like working there was painful and a real trip!
A slicer bit me once, but it wasn’t at all bad. When the clinic doc said he wasn’t gonna give me stitches, I looked deep into his eyes, then kissed him on the cheek and said, “Thank You.” He trimmed the nail, somehow w/o even hurting me & butterflied it. All I got was a small lump of a scar on the tip of my thumb and a thumbnail that splits at an annoying place all Winter long.
A restaurant pricing model has not truly captured America until someone finds a way for the coleslaw to be out of network and $15,000; even if you thought you ordered a side salad.
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Now it says I can’t eat the salad until I get a compatible fork from the manufacturer
“You should be advised that installing any other utensil in your Tastee Side Salad™ will void your warranty and affect your salad’s resale value”
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Actually, the supply chain for fish to Vegas is not bad. Companies here in Los Angeles, or others in Seattle, etc. are freezing fish here and sending across the country. So you can get high quality fish in Arizona or Vegas, etc. One of my clients is Santa Monica Seafood, and their trucks to go Vegas every day.
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Red Lobster seems like one of those chains you don’t notice unless you’re looking for it. There are several in the greater Toronto area (including one downtown), there’s several in and near my hometown, there’s even a couple in Manhattan.
I will say that my late grandmother loved Red Lobster. Loved it. My dad would grumble, particularly when she was in Florida and close to half a dozen better restaurants, but that wouldn’t stop her.
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