Buffet Restaurant Chains Are Always Scamming You. Here's How.

buffet restaurants are in the business of making money of course and that means using tricks to make you think you're getting a killer deal when in reality that might not be the case here are some of the sneaky ways buffet restaurant chains are scamming you open your eyes clyde don't you see what's going on here the buffet's rigged a big part of the draw of eating out is that someone else is doing all the work for you right you just sit down place your order make any special requests you might have then wait to be served at the end of the meal someone else picks up your plates and does the cleanup too but that's not the case at a buffet restaurant not only are you possibly paying as much or more for your meal as you would at a standard restaurant but you're also doing a lot of the work that's typically relegated to a waiter or waitress sure you get to pick and choose from lots of different food options and you can load up multiple plates if you're so inclined but buffets are saving a lot of money by getting you to do some of the work yourself the hustle points out that buffet management reduces the need for weight staff while simultaneously minimizing the costs of cooks because food is prepped in huge batches without specialization for individual customers the remaining staff simply replaces food as needed washes dishes and wipes down tables the work requires little skill or interaction with customers which means it comes cheap here's a buffet scam you really need to know the soup you're about to chow down on at your favorite chain it may just be made from scraps of yesterday's entrees all restaurants have to consider the high cost of food waste it's part of the business but it's especially costly at all you can eat buffets customers often seem less concerned with failing to finish their meals when they know they can go back and get something else if they don't like what they selected the first time plus it's hard to guess exactly how much of each menu item is needed for the day the hustle says that between 5 to 25 of every food dish at a buffet ends up in the trash when a restaurant is already working in the margins to turn a profit it's important to reduce this expense any way it can reusing food scraps is one tried and true method for turning leftovers into some kind of soup to be fair it's not like buffets are taking scraps of uneaten food from customers plates to repurpose in other ways they're just reusing the leftovers that no one previously touched still customers may not be thrilled to learn that the food they're eating may have actually been cooked days before think for a minute about the layout of a typical buffet you might first be met with a giant salad bar full of fruits and vegetables then you hit the pasta pizzas and the many different types of bread maybe you then reach the hot plates of various meat and veggie entrees before you land at the finer cuts of meat and seafood sure every buffet may be laid out a little bit differently but if you think this order of food items is by chance you'd be wrong an article on babbletop points out that the starchy and inexpensive fillers of fruits vegetables and refined carbohydrates all fill up your plate before you even see the more expensive dishes and the hustle goes further noting that 75 percent of buffet customers select food from the very first trade they come to with 66 of the food they consume coming from the first three trays they encounter so by the time you get to the items that cost the restaurant more you have less room on your plate and you're more likely to take a smaller serving this reduces the expense of each customer's buffet experience the big ticket items are here right at the back so that by the time dupes like you get to the shrimp your plate's already full if you'd like to try and beat the system tour the entire buffet before you fill your plate and then select the more expensive and savory items you're craving most maybe you remember your high school economics teacher explaining the law of diminishing returns basically if you go to mcdonald's and buy five big macs with the goal of eating all five in the same sitting you're going to find the first big mac delicious but each successive big mac is gonna be a little less satisfying by the time you get to number five you probably won't want to take another bite and trying to force yourself to chew and swallow each bite is likely to feel uncomfortable if not like downright torture buffet chain managers understand this concept and studentomics points out that this is one of the ways buffets are able to eke out a profit when you go into a buffet you may feel like you're starving and could chow down on three or four plates piled high with food but in reality your stomach is only so big after your first plate especially if you select inexpensive but filling bread salad pasta and rice that second plate isn't going to sound or taste as appealing if you happen to finish your second plate maybe you'll go for at least part of a dessert but you're unlikely to want that many more plates of typical buffet fare buffet management relies on this concept trusting that the majority of their customers won't end up wanting to eat a week's worth of food in a single visit did these sound like the actions of a man who had all he could eat chances are the buffet you love to visit charges a flat rate for food and a separate price for whatever drink you choose on top of that they probably provide extra large drink glasses and if they have servers delivering the drinks these glasses are filled to the brim with ice cutting down the total amount of drink in each cup this is all by design according to a reddit thread with a buffet manager the cost to fill a fountain drink in his restaurant is 12 cents and the sales price is 159 that means even if you get 12 refills the restaurant still turns a profit on that drink of course these restaurants are counting on the fact that you won't want 12 13 or 14 refills and drink sales are a good way to pad profit margins even if you do happen to drink a lot of carbonated belly distending soda an article on studenomics notes that the more you sip down the less total food you'll likely be comfortable consuming either way the restaurant wins when you order a fountain drink with your meal if a typical dinner plate is 11 inches expect dinner plates at your favorite buffet chain to be a little bit smaller than that a big part of eating has to do with your eyes if your plate looks full you're going to assume you're eating a lot too also by the nature of a dish's size you can only put so much food on a single plate when you use a smaller plate you serve less food overall whether or not you realize it buffets are instilling portion control into your food choices babbletop points out the dishware manufacturers even have special lines of dishware geared to buffets called half size dishes buffets want you to take less food with each serving of course you may notice the difference in size but in the context of a buffet you also know you can always go back for seconds so small plates are no big deal right maybe maybe not maybe you just find that you feel full after eating a plateful and be less likely to go back for more and that's exactly what buffet management is counting on just as buffet restaurants are trying to control how much food you serve yourself by offering you smaller plates they're also subconsciously affecting how much you take of any given food choice for example according to dollars and cents buffets are likely to use oversized serving spoons for inexpensive salads and side dishes but smaller tongs or forks for more expensive items like filet mignon it's all in an effort to subconsciously influence your food choices buffet management wants to help you limit how much you take of the more expensive items while encouraging you to load up on the cheap stuff think about it if you're given a giant spoon to serve up mashed potatoes you're likely to take a piling heap of these inexpensive items and in the same light if you're given small awkward working tongs to try to wrangle a piece of the pricier fish onto your plate you're probably going to stop at a single small serving especially if there are people waiting behind you in line none of this is by accident it's all pre-designed to subliminally influence your food choices and serving sizes it's definitely possible to find cheap prices at family friendly buffets but the trend for low ball buffet prices has gone by the wayside and some buffets are even disappearing this is due in part to research published in 2014 in the journal of sensory studies this study found that people who paid different prices for the exact same buffet ended up feeling differently about their meals one group paid four dollars while the other group paid eight dollars and those who paid more found the meal more satisfying perceiving the food to be of higher quality conversely those who paid a lower price perceived the food to be worse ultimately enjoying the meal less the conclusion by researchers was that people associate a higher price with higher quality and they're more likely to experience satisfaction with their meal if they pay a little more for buffets this is huge information for one it informs the pricing strategy by marking up prices to turn a profit customers may perceive the food they're eating as better even if buffets by the bottom of the barrel ingredients and second offering low prices for all you can eat may be a good marketing strategy to pull customers but if people ultimately perceive the meal to be lower quality they may not return you end up getting scammed if buffets use low quality food with a highly marked up price do your best to judge each bite for how it tastes not how much you paid not much all that costs i do the psychology of eating is an important subject for managers of all you can eat buffets as a result they employ tactics to get you to eat less of the expensive stuff while simultaneously trying to improve the perception you have of every bite they also use what they know about social pressure to influence your food selection and the quantity of food you add to your plate to paint the picture dollars and cents points out that expensive items like oysters are often served on smaller platters with more attractive plating strategies and fewer available oysters the idea is this if there are only 10 oysters on a platter and there's a line of people waiting to add oysters to their plates every person is more likely to only take one or two rather than 10 leaving oysters for those who are waiting after all nobody wants to be the jerk who takes all 10 oysters and leaves everyone else wide mouth gaping at the audacity also when items are plated beautifully with limited numbers managers bank on the concept of supply and demand the more supply there is the less demand and the lower the perceived quality of the item conversely the less supply there is and the higher the demand the higher the perceived quality if you make a few smart choices when you grab your plate at a buffet restaurant you'll be more likely to enjoy a killer deal and avoid being scammed check out one of our newest videos right here plus even more mashed videos about your favorite restaurants are coming soon subscribe to our youtube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one [Music]

Channel: Mashed

Views: 665,514

Rating: 4.6871819 out of 5

Keywords: mashed, mashed food, buffets, restaurants, buffet scams, are buffets scams, buffet tips, buffet hacks, restaurant scams, restaurant tips, restaurant hacks, buffet tricks, restaurant tricks, how do buffets operate, how do you run a buffet, how are buffets run, how do buffets make money, how do buffets save money, do buffets recycle food, do buffets recycle unused food, buffet psychology, buffet layouts, buffet techniques

Id: HAq0qJKFAU8

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 25 2020