Mastering The All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet

I must warn you. This story is not for the squeamish. The feint of heart. The thin of waistline. The calorie-counters. “Dieting diva‘s“. This is a raw, honest, in-your-mouth look at a delicious phenomenon that is common to everyone: the all-you-can-eat-buffet.

Yes, the-all-you-can-eat-buffet. What a fantastic idea. Ground-breaking. Novel. Brilliant. Ranks high on the list with man’s achievements with John Glenn orbiting the earth. Cudo’s and a big pat-on-the-back to the person or persons at the nationally-recognized restaurant chain or the independently-owned café down the block who had this great idea. Simply ingenious! The all-you-can-eat-buffet. Eat all you can hold, but pay one, affordable price. The patent-holder deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. And their face on Time Magazine as Favorite Meal of The Year.

If the all-you-can-eat-buffet were a woman, I would ask my wife for a divorce and move in today with my new companion, the all-you-can-eat-buffet, and I would give my wife, of many good years, all the cash in the bank, the car, house and peace of mind she would get at not having me around if she would only let me swipe my favorite fork, spoon, and knife from the silverware drawer. Now that is not too much to ask is it, ladies?

Granted, the all-you-can-eat-buffet is not for everyone. The all-you-can-eat-buffet is a warfare. A struggle. A fight that goes to the strongest. A tasty-prize after Sunday morning worship services. But there are those among us, (the buffet lovers who forsake friends, family and position in the community), who rather choose dainty-portions, reasonable portions of food, nibble at it while chatting with friends who might be seated at their table--giving the occasional concerned glance at the table where “we,“ the “bastions of the buffet” are sitting. Eating. Shoveling down whatever fod is on the buffet. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a dainty, careful, moderate type of diner. Nothing at all. I just happen to favor the people, of all races, creeds, national origin, who love the all-you-can-eat-buffet, and friends, I want to tell you that “we” are far from being a dying breed in America. “Our” ranks, and waistlines, are growing bigger each day. We love the all-you-can-eat-buffet and we can handle it on any day!” That, my friends, is our national motto.

“We,” the fans of the all-you-can-eat-buffet are not criminals. Crazed lunatics out on the town. Or people who strike fear in the hearts of old ladies and kids. “We” are average citizens--lawyers, school teachers, steel workers, city sanitation workers, salespeople, and family men and women. We cannot be easily picked from a crowd. You can pick us out easily if you have us to stand IN FRONT of the rest of the crowd. Our protruding stomachs and belts begging for mercy are sure-fire give-away’s every time. “Look, mommy! Why is that man’s stomach pushing that Volvo around the Pizza Hut parking lot?” “Don’t worry, Janey! That is one of those, you know, all-you-can-eat-buffet eaters. They are harmless, but don’t get in the way of their forks and knives while they are eating or you might receive a deep cut on your hand!”

• The reason for my story title, “Mastering The All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet,” is not that hard to understand. It takes mastery of the buffet, area of the restaurant that offers the all-you-can-eat-buffet, and the size of the crowd that you will face upon entering the restaurant in wide-open mode ready to do some serious damage. Chowing down. Pigging out. And filling your belly with all the good food that you can hold. Eating so much, and I am referring to all the members of your buffet-lovers group, that your waitresses’ eyes will bulge out. She will call the cook from the kitchen to witness you, and your friends, covering two plates at time, plus drinks, and never coming up for air. Like I said earlier, buffet-eating is not for the timid, but for the “calorie consumers” at heart.
• FORMING YOUR BATTLE PLAN:

When Are Most All-You-Can-Eat-Buffets held . . .

(you need to compile this vital information so you and your food-gorging pals can have a successful run at whatever buffet you choose to attack.)

1. Sunday afternoons - are the most-accepted time for the All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet. Pizza Hut, in some locations, maybe all, provide not only a Sunday buffet with all of your favorite pizza’s, pasta’s, bread sticks and more, but on Tuesday evenings. So jot this down if you love Pizza Hut and their delicious food items. (This is an unsolicited, unpaid endorsement for Pizza Hut, by me, Kenneth Avery, who just wanted to say a nice thing about Pizza Hut).

2. Some seafood restaurants, both nationally-known and independent, have seafood All-You-Can-Eat-Buffets on Saturday nights with prices ranging from $14.50 a person to $19.95 a person. Depending on what seafood restaurant you choose.

3. CiCi’s Pizza, speaking of pizza, promotes an All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet all the time. Year around. Seven days a week. One price gets you in line for some of the most-delicious pizza on the planet. Jot this down also for when you are in Tupelo, Mississippi, and are starved for pizza. To be fair, Tupelo has three Pizza Huts. Make your call.

4. NOTE: hospital cafeterias DO NOT feature an all-you-can-eat-buffet, so do not worry the staff of these caregivers by asking, “When is feeding time, nurse?”

Things You Are Not To Do In Forming Your Battle Plan:

1. If you are a Sunday-after-church buffet lover, please, call up your group on Saturday night, NOT during your preacher’s sermon on Sunday morning to decide where you will literally pass-out from eating one plate of food after the other once your preacher has finished delivering his “spiritual food,” for the day. NOTE: Most preachers take a dim view of watching you and your pals, (and hearing you too for you cannot whisper that well), formulate who’s car you are going in; who is going to be the lead going into the restaurant and how much money you will be able to spend without the wife getting upset with you.)

2. Please, do NOT charge into the restaurant that you and your group has chosen as the “victim,” I mean, establishment for you to eat like barbarians. Even if this is your all-time favorite restaurant. Do NOT bellow like an angry bull in Spain, “Well, look at this! I am here again! Now feed me!” Statements such as this are very rude, uncalled for and unwanted. Have you ever taken the time to look at the heads that shake, mouths that say, “Who is that jerk?” and eyes that glare at you and your friends when you run ahead of patient diners just so YOU and your buddies can act like swine? Be classy. A simple nod of your head at the waitress will be fine. Maybe some of the diners that you have offended in the past, might even think of you as human.

3. DO NOT send two or three friends inside the already-packed restaurant and tell the people gathering around the buffet tables in nice, orderly fashion, that an “epidemic has just broken out,” and your friends are undercover health department employees sent into this restaurant to make sure that innocent people will not get sick. Just wait your turn. The food will be there when you get there.

A Reconnaissance Plan Works To Your Benefit . . .

A. Know the lay-out of the restaurant

• if it’s a new All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet restaurant. Go have dinner with the wife and kids the night before you attack it on Sunday. Learn where the most-crowded areas of the dining area are located.
• “rehearse” going up the buffet tables and have your wife, if she’s willing, to use a handy stopwatch (from Dick’s Sporting Goods) to time you to see how long it takes you to get your plateful of food. Multiply this by number of “chow hounds” in your group, and you have a working formula to tell you just how long each run will be at the buffet tables.
• get to know, on first-name basis, the waitress who will be working there the next day, Sunday, if you and your “gorging gang,” will be there with bibs on to hand out your money to her. Being friendly always pays. And hint to this waiter or waitress that you and your gang are big tippers. But don’t just say that. DO IT. If it’s one thing waitresses hate is lying jerks.

B. Find out where the exits are located

• you or your family or “buffet lovers,” may have to exit in a hurry if you eat more than a reasonable amount from this restaurant’s All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet. (FACT: where I live, in Hamilton, Ala., a guy in 1980, when our Pizza Hut opened, actually had to be escorted off the restaurant premises by city policemen for he abused the All-You-Can-Eat part of the sign on the buffet. You see, this guy was huge. And I don’t mean that abusive. He took the All-You-Can-Eat LITERALLY, not moderately) This is more that just friendly advice on how to master the All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet.
• leave your phone number with the restaurant manager for if a family member needs you, they can call you. But instruct the restaurant manager, to only interrupt you and your buddies only if it’s a case of life or death. The All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet is important to you. You have worked hard all week for this treat. You need to be left alone while you bask in the glow of the pepperoni and sausage pizza is that is the type of restaurant you are going to “eat up the profits” on Sunday.
• CAREFUL, if this restaurant sells BEER with their pizza or whatever food is on the buffet, I beg of you, do NOT have beer-chugging contests along with your “Gorge-A-Thon” with pizza, pasta and salads. The establishment will probably call the local police to be waiting in the parking lot as you stumble out on your way to drive home. DON’T BE STUPID. If you drink, designate a sane, sober driver.

How To Not Look Like You Are Not Eating Like A Herd of Wild Horses . . .

1. Take quick bites. Hold it for a minute. Be perfectly still then chew like crazy. To the untrained eye, you and your pals will look like your are just casual-eaters out on a Sunday afternoon for a good time having lunch at the all-you-can-eat-buffet.

2. Dress extra-nice. No restaurant manager will dare gamble on throwing out an important group of senators, lawyers, or ministers. And a nice suit makes you look thin, so you have a built-in or dressed-up excuse to torture your colons. If you dress slouchy, the manger will have no problem of tossing you out for he has seen your kind before--guys who deep down, are longing to be competition eaters, but don’t have the nerve.

3. Smile a lot. This gives the appearance that you and your friends are just a group of frat buddies catching up on old memories. But if you sit with your head down all of the time--shoveling food into your throat, well I tell you this. People, including the restaurant manager will soon “pull the plug” on the buffet after your party has single-handedly ran off three youth church groups, ten men who are working the three until eleven shift at the local steel plant and eight or nine nuns from the local convent who are out just this one Sunday to celebrate their sticking to their vows. You see, my overweight buddy, mastering the all-you-can-eat-buffet is work. Hard, calculating work. If you want to master the buffet, you got to do the prep and research work first.

What To Do After The All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet Is History . . .

1. Have plenty of Alka-Seltzer in the car ready for you to guzzle down for buddy, you are gonna need it. I know what I am talking about. No one eats as much as you and your friends without “paying the piper” one day.

2. It wouldn’t hurt to bring along some plastic barf buckets in the car. Just in case a weakling of your group can’t hold his grub.

3. Don’t forget the air freshener. The car will be almost ready to explode from all the manly-burps, gas that is passed and possible barfing. Always remember, a true master of the all-you-can-eat-buffet is always prepared. For anything.

4. Don’t give in to the “drowsies” and fall asleep behind the wheel of your car as you leave the restaurant that now has a group photo of you, not for a souvenir for eating so much, but for employees to recognize you when you return. Didn’t the striped coats and jeans seem a big strange, friend?

5. Drive under the speed limit--if you have or haven’t had beer with the all-you-can-eat-buffet. Better safe than sorry. All of your friends will laugh at you if the police stop you for weaving in he road and you get out to explain that this was only an all-you-can-eat-party at Pizza Hut. Then you barf all over the officer’s shoes. He gives you the breathalyzer test and you pass. See what moderation can do for you?

Things That Need To Be Done Now That Your All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet Day Is Over . . .

1. Call local EMT’s and have them waiting at your home just in case someone’s heart stops from stuffing pounds of pizza down themselves. You cannot take any chances when you are striving to master the all-you-can-eat-buffet.

2. Walk around. A long time. DO NOT lay down. Anywhere. This huge amount of food needs to be worked and worked by your intestinal muscles to get it to go down. Drink more Alka-Seltzer and maybe a swig or two of Mylanta for good measure. A healthy master of the all-you-can-eat-buffet is a happy master of the all-you-can-eat-buffet.

3. Pray. I mean pray to God that He was merciful enough to you and your friends to allow you to survive your “Glut-A-Thon,” just one more time.

4. Be sure the local newspaper, television news crew and radio news teams are on hand to cover this monumental event in your lives. Even if your insides are on fire, smile big for the camera, for buddy, you and your friends are going to be the talk of the town. I would say toast of the town, but I surmise that you really don’t want to hear any food terms at this point.

After a time of healing and digesting the tons of pizza, pasta, bread sticks and salad, would it be acceptable for me to suggest an area that has been bothering me for years.

They don’t have an all-you-can-eat-buffet, but their food comes by the dozens.

To Krispy Kreme Doughnuts! Charge!

I must warn you. This story is not for the squeamish. The feint of heart. The thin of waistline. The calorie-counters. “Dieting diva‘s“. This is a raw, honest, in-your-mouth look at a delicious phenomenon that is common to everyone: the all-you-can-eat-buffet.

Yes, the-all-you-can-eat-buffet. What a fantastic idea. Ground-breaking. Novel. Brilliant. Ranks high on the list with man’s achievements with John Glenn orbiting the earth. Cudo’s and a big pat-on-the-back to the person or persons at the nationally-recognized restaurant chain or the independently-owned café down the block who had this great idea. Simply ingenious! The all-you-can-eat-buffet. Eat all you can hold, but pay one, affordable price. The patent-holder deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. And their face on Time Magazine as Favorite Meal of The Year.

If the all-you-can-eat-buffet were a woman, I would ask my wife for a divorce and move in today with my new companion, the all-you-can-eat-buffet, and I would give my wife, of many good years, all the cash in the bank, the car, house and peace of mind she would get at not having me around if she would only let me swipe my favorite fork, spoon, and knife from the silverware drawer. Now that is not too much to ask is it, ladies?

Granted, the all-you-can-eat-buffet is not for everyone. The all-you-can-eat-buffet is a warfare. A struggle. A fight that goes to the strongest. A tasty-prize after Sunday morning worship services. But there are those among us, (the buffet lovers who forsake friends, family and position in the community), who rather choose dainty-portions, reasonable portions of food, nibble at it while chatting with friends who might be seated at their table--giving the occasional concerned glance at the table where “we,“ the “bastions of the buffet” are sitting. Eating. Shoveling down whatever food is on the buffet. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a dainty, careful, moderate type of diner. Nothing at all. I just happen to favor the people, of all races, creeds, national origin, who love the all-you-can-eat-buffet, and friends, I want to tell you that “we” are far from being a dying breed in America. “Our” ranks, and waistlines, are growing bigger each day. We love the all-you-can-eat-buffet and we can handle it on any day!” That, my friends, is our national motto.

“We,” the fans of the all-you-can-eat-buffet are not criminals. Crazed lunatics out on the town. Or people who strike fear in the hearts of old ladies and kids. “We” are average citizens--lawyers, school teachers, steel workers, city sanitation workers, salespeople, and family men and women. We cannot be easily picked from a crowd. You can pick us out easily if you have us to stand IN FRONT of the rest of the crowd. Our protruding stomachs and belts begging for mercy are sure-fire give-away’s every time. “Look, mommy! Why is that man’s stomach pushing that Volvo around the Pizza Hut parking lot?” “Don’t worry, Janey! That is one of those, you know, all-you-can-eat-buffet eaters. They are harmless, but don’t get in the way of their forks and knives while they are eating or you might receive a deep cut on your hand!”

• The reason for my story title, “Mastering The All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet,” is not that hard to understand. It takes mastery of the buffet, area of the restaurant that offers the all-you-can-eat-buffet, and the size of the crowd that you will face upon entering the restaurant in wide-open mode ready to do some serious damage. Chowing down. Pigging out. And filling your belly with all the good food that you can hold. Eating so much, and I am referring to all the members of your buffet-lovers group, that your waitresses’ eyes will bulge out. She will call the cook from the kitchen to witness you, and your friends, covering two plates at time, plus drinks, and never coming up for air. Like I said earlier, buffet-eating is not for the timid, but for the “calorie consumers” at heart.
• FORMING YOUR BATTLE PLAN:

When Are Most All-You-Can-Eat-Buffets held . . .

(you need to compile this vital information so you and your food-gorging pals can have a successful run at whatever buffet you choose to attack.)

1. Sunday afternoons - are the most-accepted time for the All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet. Pizza Hut, in some locations, maybe all, provide not only a Sunday buffet with all of your favorite pizza’s, pasta’s, bread sticks and more, but on Tuesday evenings. So jot this down if you love Pizza Hut and their delicious food items. (This is an unsolicited, unpaid endorsement for Pizza Hut, by me, Kenneth Avery, who just wanted to say a nice thing about Pizza Hut).

2. Some seafood restaurants, both nationally-known and independent, have seafood All-You-Can-Eat-Buffets on Saturday nights with prices ranging from $14.50 a person to $19.95 a person. Depending on what seafood restaurant you choose.

3. CiCi’s Pizza, speaking of pizza, promotes an All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet all the time. Year around. Seven days a week. One price gets you in line for some of the most-delicious pizza on the planet. Jot this down also for when you are in Tupelo, Mississippi, and are starved for pizza. To be fair, Tupelo has three Pizza Huts. Make your call.

4. NOTE: hospital cafeterias DO NOT feature an all-you-can-eat-buffet, so do not worry the staff of these caregivers by asking, “When is feeding time, nurse?”

Things You Are Not To Do In Forming Your Battle Plan:

1. If you are a Sunday-after-church buffet lover, please, call up your group on Saturday night, NOT during your preacher’s sermon on Sunday morning to decide where you will literally pass-out from eating one plate of food after the other once your preacher has finished delivering his “spiritual food,” for the day. NOTE: Most preachers take a dim view of watching you and your pals, (and hearing you too for you cannot whisper that well), formulate who’s car you are going in; who is going to be the lead going into the restaurant and how much money you will be able to spend without the wife getting upset with you.)

2. Please, do NOT charge into the restaurant that you and your group has chosen as the “victim,” I mean, establishment for you to eat like barbarians. Even if this is your all-time favorite restaurant. Do NOT bellow like an angry bull in Spain, “Well, look at this! I am here again! Now feed me!” Statements such as this are very rude, uncalled for and unwanted. Have you ever taken the time to look at the heads that shake, mouths that say, “Who is that jerk?” and eyes that glare at you and your friends when you run ahead of patient diners just so YOU and your buddies can act like swine? Be classy. A simple nod of your head at the waitress will be fine. Maybe some of the diners that you have offended in the past, might even think of you as human.

3. DO NOT send two or three friends inside the already-packed restaurant and tell the people gathering around the buffet tables in nice, orderly fashion, that an “epidemic has just broken out,” and your friends are undercover health department employees sent into this restaurant to make sure that innocent people will not get sick. Just wait your turn. The food will be there when you get there.

A Reconnaissance Plan Works To Your Benefit . . .

A. Know the lay-out of the restaurant

• if it’s a new All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet restaurant. Go have dinner with the wife and kids the night before you attack it on Sunday. Learn where the most-crowded areas of the dining area are located.
• “rehearse” going up the buffet tables and have your wife, if she’s willing, to use a handy stopwatch (from Dick’s Sporting Goods) to time you to see how long it takes you to get your plateful of food. Multiply this by number of “chow hounds” in your group, and you have a working formula to tell you just how long each run will be at the buffet tables.
• -get to know, on first-name basis, the waitress who will be working there the next day, Sunday, if you and your “gorging gang,” will be there with bibs on to hand out your money to her. Being friendly always pays. And hint to this waiter or waitress that you and your gang are big tippers. But don’t just say that. DO IT. If it’s one thing waitresses hate is lying jerks.

B. Find out where the exits are located

• you or your family or “buffet lovers,” may have to exit in a hurry if you eat more than a reasonable amount from this restaurant’s All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet. (FACT: where I live, in Hamilton, Ala., a guy in 1980, when our Pizza Hut opened, actually had to be escorted off the restaurant premises by city policemen for he abused the All-You-Can-Eat part of the sign on the buffet. You see, this guy was huge. And I don’t mean that abusive. He took the All-You-Can-Eat LITERALLY, not moderately) This is more that just friendly advice on how to master the All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet.
• leave your phone number with the restaurant manager for if a family member needs you, they can call you. But instruct the restaurant manager, to only interrupt you and your buddies only if it’s a case of life or death. The All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet is important to you. You have worked hard all week for this treat. You need to be left alone while you bask in the glow of the pepperoni and sausage pizza is that is the type of restaurant you are going to “eat up the profits” on Sunday.
• CAREFUL, if this restaurant sells BEER with their pizza or whatever food is on the buffet, I beg of you, do NOT have beer-chugging contests along with your “Gorge-A-Thon” with pizza, pasta and salads. The establishment will probably call the local police to be waiting in the parking lot as you stumble out on your way to drive home. DON’T BE STUPID. If you drink, designate a sane, sober driver.

How To Not Look Like You Are Not Eating Like A Herd of Wild Horses . . .

1. Take quick bites. Hold it for a minute. Be perfectly still then chew like crazy. To the untrained eye, you and your pals will look like your are just casual-eaters out on a Sunday afternoon for a good time having lunch at the all-you-can-eat-buffet.

2. Dress extra-nice. No restaurant manager will dare gamble on throwing out an important group of senators, lawyers, or ministers. And a nice suit makes you look thin, so you have a built-in or dressed-up excuse to torture your colons. If you dress slouchy, the manger will have no problem of tossing you out for he has seen your kind before--guys who deep down, are longing to be competition eaters, but don’t have the nerve.

3. Smile a lot. This gives the appearance that you and your friends are just a group of frat buddies catching up on old memories. But if you sit with your head down all of the time--shoveling food into your throat, well I tell you this. People, including the restaurant manager will soon “pull the plug” on the buffet after your party has single-handedly ran off three youth church groups, ten men who are working the three until eleven shift at the local steel plant and eight or nine nuns from the local convent who are out just this one Sunday to celebrate their sticking to their vows. You see, my overweight buddy, mastering the all-you-can-eat-buffet is work. Hard, calculating work. If you want to master the buffet, you got to do the prep and research work first.

What To Do After The All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet Is History . . .

1. Have plenty of Alka-Seltzer in the car ready for you to guzzle down for buddy, you are gonna need it. I know what I am talking about. No one eats as much as you and your friends without “paying the piper” one day.

2. It wouldn’t hurt to bring along some plastic barf buckets in the car. Just in case a weakling of your group can’t hold his grub.

3. Don’t forget the air freshener. The car will be almost ready to explode from all the manly-burps, gas that is passed and possible barfing. Always remember, a true master of the all-you-can-eat-buffet is always prepared. For anything.

4. Don’t give in to the “drowsies” and fall asleep behind the wheel of your car as you leave the restaurant that now has a group photo of you, not for a souvenir for eating so much, but for employees to recognize you when you return. Didn’t the striped coats and jeans seem a big strange, friend?

5. Drive under the speed limit--if you have or haven’t had beer with the all-you-can-eat-buffet. Better safe than sorry. All of your friends will laugh at you if the police stop you for weaving in he road and you get out to explain that this was only an all-you-can-eat-party at Pizza Hut. Then you barf all over the officer’s shoes. He gives you the breathalyzer test and you pass. See what moderation can do for you?

Things That Need To Be Done Now That Your All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet Day Is Over . . .

1. Call local EMT’s and have them waiting at your home just in case someone’s heart stops from stuffing pounds of pizza down themselves. You cannot take any chances when you are striving to master the all-you-can-eat-buffet.

2. Walk around. A long time. DO NOT lay down. Anywhere. This huge amount of food needs to be worked and worked by your intestinal muscles to get it to go down. Drink more Alka-Seltzer and maybe a swig or two of Mylanta for good measure. A healthy master of the all-you-can-eat-buffet is a happy master of the all-you-can-eat-buffet.

3. Pray. I mean pray to God that He was merciful enough to you and your friends to allow you to survive your “Glut-A-Thon,” just one more time.

4. Be sure the local newspaper, television news crew and radio news teams are on hand to cover this monumental event in your lives. Even if your insides are on fire, smile big for the camera, for buddy, you and your friends are going to be the talk of the town. I would say toast of the town, but I surmise that you really don’t want to hear any food terms at this point.

After a time of healing and digesting the tons of pizza, pasta, breadsticks and salad, would it be acceptable for me to suggest an area that has been bothering me for years.

They don’t have an all-you-can-eat-buffet, but their food comes by the dozens.

To Krispy Kreme Doughnuts! Charge!