How America's Largest Buffet Survived The Death Of All-You-Can-Eats | Big Business

[Music] this is the kitchen behind America's largest Buffet Shady Maple in Pennsylvania serves about 1.2 million people a year there's 20 trays every piece has to be laid out individually customers travel from all over the country to Chow Down on this 200t Buffet you come here you eat until you start laughing oh my God I don't even have enough hand it will set you back just $16 on a Saturday morning I feel like it just sums up American culture so well lots of cheap food come on into Old Country Buffet all you can eats like this used to be all the rage across the US even big chains like Pizza Hut and KFC got in on the trend but especially in the last decade buffets have stumbled their US market size is down roughly 30% since 2012 but this place Shady Maple has thrived on average 4,000 people come here every day to eat so what happened to the All-American all you can eat and why Against All Odds has Shady Maple kept the big business of Buffets alive now that crispy I met with Summer Smith Shady Maples food quality manager bright and early on a Saturday morning morning get to you got a little maze [Music] yeah the cook start prep at 4:00 a.m. we'll go through about 7 to 750 uh pounds of bacon Saturdays are their busiest days as they race to prep for 8,000 people going be going that one oh the energy is high it's like our Super Bowl the chefs cook a ton of different dishes from American to Pennsylvania at Dutch Fair honoring the menonite and amus traditions of the area like this local delicacy called scrapple liver and it's it's ground up at the fryer station they crisp up sausage patties and links on the griddles chefs Dro hundreds of Pancakes this line is for egg dishes summer and her team go through over 700 eggs for a Saturday breakfast on the other side of the kitchen this team starts cutting G for lunch they'll set up this Chopper the broccoli cauliflower they chop by hand it's a lot of prep by 8:00 a.m. the line wrapped around the lobby and I was getting a little hungry so it was time to check out the buffet myself hi for uh just one just one today that is going to be 1769 okay gocha is there a time limit there is not a time limit you can stay as long as You' like just if you want to stay past 11:00 that's when we switch over to our lunch um Buffet there you go your chcken head down there you can get seated by a Hostess um and they I'll let you know how everything works thank you so [Music] much can I get an omelet with everything on it one chocolate chip thank you yeah there is like childhood right here jiggle scrapple she said this was a Pennsylvania favorite never have too much bacon fries you need a little lime bacon to hold you over for the table bacon you know I have no shame let's go all right got the first round [Music] the cinnamon syrup was too much that is the thickest omelette I'm going to crush it in like 30 seconds flat I'm going to try the Pennsylvania Dutch scrapple it's just like it's literally just a Patty of like pork she said had livers in it all that stuff baked French toast w m okay that's good I'm going to try this whoopy pie oh man I'm covered in chocolate f to slip over when you're finished dining and no tipping please I mean look at this spread like if you wanted to try everything you're you're inevitably not going to be able to finish it all what's really mindboggling all of this was just $16 and those affordable prices are why Americans fell in love with buffets to begin with buffets can be traced back to 18th century Sweden where elites feasted on large spreads called smorgus boards around the same time the French laid out fancy meals of Their Own that's actually where we got the name for Buffet after the French word for sideboard where the food was served but it was a Las Vegas casino manager who brought the idea to the American masses in 1946 with a 24-hour buffet that cost just a dollar and that was something that didn't make him a lot of money herbs buffet was meant to attract people there and then they would stay and eat and then eventually Gamble and that's where the casino made its money in the 1970s Buffet chain started to spread across the US Golden Corral delightful delight at Old Country Buffet kids always get what they want the restaurants could keep meal prices affordable because they had heavy foot traffic and low labor costs doesn't take very many people to run a Golden Corral compared to a fancy restaurant there weren't as many servers and a smaller kitchen staff cooked in big batches while a chef at a sitdown restaurant can cook for 25 people in an hour a buffet Chef can serve two 200 the profit margins at these places were raay are thin but it is definitely something that gets consumers in the door and for a lot of restaurants that's challenge number one by the 1980s buffets were roaring success a key part of the American dream is Having excess right having lots of stuff and in a way and all you can eat buffet fits perfectly in with that you know Wendy's superar is great for families because there's something for everyone the concept was so successful that big Brands like KFC and Wendy's hopped in on the trend I went to Pizza Hut regularly in high school for the buffet uh because it was cool as a high school kid to Gorge yourself with pizza Shady Maples Founders started the buffet at the height of all you can eats in 1985 from a small roadside veggie stand in the' 60s their new 300 seat Buffet concept was a quick hit 1 and 1 half hour weights were common but soon all you can e stumbled across across the country in the era of fad diets customers opted for healthier options then into the 9s especially there are a number of Fairly high-profile incidents um involving kind of mass food poisoning at these places in 2000 a Milwaukee Sizzler was responsible for hundreds of probable ecoli cases in 2003 aii in Pittsburgh was the site of at the time the largest hepatitis A outbreak in US history bad green onions infected 660 people and killed four in 2010 a man got salmonella from an Old Country Buffet in Wyoming the court ordered the chain to pay him $1 million in Damages when you have enough stories in the news about people getting food poisoning from these places that affects public perception and people will go elsewhere and it's been downhill ever since between 1998 and 2017 more than 1300 All You Can Eat restaurants in the US closed down then came the Corona virus pandemic it's hard to imagine a more lethal blow to all you can eat bease than Co everyone takes from the same trays and puts it on their plate there's a bunch of silverware sitting out it's all communal in a sense and I don't want to eat food that maybe other people have sneezed on that's just gross Sizzler one of the biggest Buffet chains in the US announced bankruptcy in September 2020 the following year the parent company of Old Country Buffet did the same the pandemic shook Shady Maple too we had to close here for over 5 months we reopened then we had to close again between Thanksgiving and Christmas they started doing takeout but what really kept the company afloat summer says was the Shady Maple grocery store behind the buffet which brought in thousands of customers every day but since 20121 Shady Maples Buffet business has come back with roaring success [Music] the last two years have been our best years ever and we're continuing to thrive Shady Maple's reputation for making fresh food has kept people coming back there is this notion that everything is fresh or homemade that's a different kind of proposition than a c's or golden [Music] car instead of using pre-made mixes Chef Brian nagley whips up the bamal sauce for the mac and cheese from scratch using milk and shredded cheddar he also makes the stuffing or filling as the Pennsylvania Dutch call it by hand following the Founder's original recipe he mixes 10 lb of butter with bread cubes you can feel it you know what I mean you feel it with your hands to keep food fresh the staff monitors the buffet closely and orders more when a tray is close to running out so this is our ordering system that we order the food here that it goes back to the fryer aisle and the cooks departmenta the friers get the ticket this one for fried shrimp and fill the order as quickly as [Music] possible that ticket stays with the batch back through the order window but while an order of fried shrimp might take Chef's 2 minutes to fill the Fried Chicken takes 30 minutes he's putting a load of chicken in his name is tungen and then after he puts it in we have them programmed in 18 minutes it takes for fried chicken what's your nickname son he handsome man cuz he thinks he's handsome he calls me boss lady tongs on dunks and breads every piece by hand each order has 60 pieces so he's always juggling multiple batches at [Music] once chicken yes ma'am [Music] cook John plot Cooks the veggies they chopped [Music] earlier what did you just put in cabage yes ma'am cabbage and now when it comes out we throw some of our brown butter and cornflake mixture on top of it Sumer this one just froze again most restaurants have a shut down and we we don't we keep going from the moment we open at 7:00 a.m. till we close at 7:30 so the equipment sometimes gets tired like everybody else does down the aisle John jumps in to make potatoes we mix our mashed potatoes for 5 minutes if you do it under they don't turn out if you do it over they don't turn out there is a science to it at the end of the aisle chefs pull the briskets out of the smoker so on a Saturday we'll go through 42 we have it down to a science where it's a hickory smoke cook 12 to 14 hours here are they grilling rows of perogi and Kil basa [Music] sausages hi it's me again if you're like me and want to stay for both breakfast and lunch you just have to go back to the front and pay the $13 difference it's not actually an advertised thing so you only hear it by word of mouth it's a fun little Park from be here um if you have the stomach for two meals in a row [Music] yes round two the only thing summer said I needed to eat was this brisket how long have you been working here for long time and I've been always on this Grill there you go thank you so much some people say it's expensive but it's actually really cheap you know when you think about it hey love it I need to get I need to get the fried chicken that's that's what everyone told me was was the best thing here Co handsome man he's the one that made that okay got the goods and I think that's the stuffing that Mr Brian made for us can I get a burger with cheese please oh my God we haven't seen any of these Foods yet oh [Music] my oh my God okay so the plan of getting a little bit of everything does not work when there is 700s of everything finally I got to dig in starting with these bright pink pickled eggs a traditional Amish eat look at [Music] that it's not as bad as some of the people I've watched on YouTube expressed it's very vinegary but I think it's just the color man like to see an egg that's literally as Pink as flesh it's a little jarring and I don't know if I can get past that okay so the the fried chicken look at that now that crispy God that's good best thing I've eaten all day barnun best thing wow no wonder he knows he's handsome we're going to try this ped pork the barbecue pork and Cajun Catfish were decent the mac and cheese that's actually really good the brisket seven people said this brisket was like the only thing to get here all right not to say my expectations are like to the moon but they're high no it's a little dry good chicken wings good chicken wings good fried chicken good fried shrimp oh the mashed potatoes so it's like a creamier version of what you would get out of a box I think I mean for the amount of food that you can get like I feel like the quantity alone is kind of worth it so we tried a Chinese buffet we tried going Corral and we were comparing both of them and we realized how bad the actual food is at both of them and then when you you come over here though th this place is actually decent it tastes more like real food I'll definitely come back yeah this is my third time like the past two two months we came one time and that was it yeah that was it and now we look forward to coming every week I love this place by 5:30 p.m. the line has wrapped around the lobby and out the door like all buffets Shady Maple works on thin margins but this volume has kept it afloat it sees three times more traffic than a Golden Corral in the area and 15 times that of a local CES and because of that giant line each platter of food is turned over quickly within 20 minutes that does alleviate some of the food safety issues because you're turning things over so quickly nothing sits around for too long but when we we look at like the decay of the American Buffet I feel like this doesn't even sit in the same category Shady Maple has found its Niche it's not only the largest buffet in America it's also leaned into the Allure of the Amish Country around it focusing on home style Pennsylvania Dutch food and touting Local eats like that scrapple and mush and and I think the reason that this place is endured is like food aside it's it's the experience with a gift shop and a grocery store looming behind the buffet Shady Maple has become a destination they become rare enough to be novel again right and people will go to Amish country and say oh let's go to Shady Maple because who the hell has one of these in their neighborhood anymore [Music]

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 4,355,236

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News

Id: TXg1mYN2tbw

Length: 18min 8sec (1088 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2024