Buffet Workers Share Their All-You-Can-Eat Restaurant Horror Stories
What is it about “all you can eat” that inspires human hubris? These buffet employees share their grisliest and shocking tales of a good meal gone bad.
When unlimited portions meet the human frailty, the results can be messy, loud, and downright violent. Mind the salad bar and cringe at these horror stories from the buffet line.
1. Not Stacked Up for This Job
Years ago, I worked at an all-you-can-eat country buffet in South Carolina. I was a busboy. One day, I went to a table. It was a mess, as per usual. It looked to be a large family/group of families of around 12 people or so.
The thing that stuck it in my memory is that whenever they had finished with what they were going to eat, they would scrape their plate and use it again. Scrape their plates... onto the floor next to their chairs.
So next to each chair, there was a six-inch to 18-inch pile of chicken bones, crab legs, mashed potatoes, remnants of baked potatoes, etc.
2. Lost in the Sauce
My first job was as a dishwasher at an all-you-can-eat fried catfish buffet. People are animals. Especially the ones that get far more food off the buffet than they can eat.
Then they take the leftovers and pile them on a plate or tray, cover in ketchup and tartar sauce, then pour their iced tea over the top of all that. And, by the way, a lot of people who did that got at least two plates like that a night.
3. It Pays to Eat
Not mine, but I had a buddy who was 400+ lbs and the dude could put away some food. He went to a casino buffet that was one of the higher end ones that had crab legs and steak.
On about his fourth or fifth plate stacked full of crab legs, the manager came out and gave him $250 in free slot play to leave the buffet.
So, I linked this to my buddy who pointed out that there were two other dudes there and none of them was under 300 lbs. They killed a metric ton of food between them, and he was putting them to shame.
The buffet was higher end, so it was $50 a person, but they easily all ate probably three or four times that and he ate probably eight or ten times that worth in food. He then went on to win just over 100 dollars with that free slot play as well.
If you can’t beat the casinos at the games, beat 'em at the bar or the buffet.
Max Pixel
4. Mommy’s Little Distraction
A woman came in with two of her kids and had a pretty regular meal. You pay when you leave at our place, and she decided to sneak out with her younger daughter before paying, leaving her underage son alone at the table.
We caught on pretty quick and sent someone after her, who found her in her car in the parking garage, waiting for her son to come as well.
She refused to come back in and pay, so we had to keep her son 'hostage' until the police came to handle the situation. What some people will do to their kids, I swear.
Forgot to mention: we also found out from her son that she stole one of the managers' keycards and they would regularly come into the hotel and use the card to go swimming in the top floor pool. Smart, I’ll give her that, but still.
