Every commercial kitchen has a lot of secrets, especially a system as popular as an all-you-can-eat buffet. Just like anything in the world, it has its own advantages and disadvantages, so you should only go to the places that you can trust.

We at Bright Side are sure that we shouldn’t completely stop going to all-you-can-eat buffets, but it’s definitely something that we have to be more careful with. And at the end of the article, there is a bonus that will tell you about what some restaurant guests are ready to do to eat more food.

One meal can be used to make another.

Usually a good bit of the food gets repurposed, like say the fish dish on Monday will become fish pie or fish soup on Tuesday. Some buffet restaurants will then throw out the food that can’t be repurposed. 

My buddy who worked at a buffet told me they used to make salad croutons out of the half-eaten pieces of bread that people left on their plates. 

I was done eating and going for dessert and while I was approaching the chocolate fountain I was interested in trying, I watched a kid sneeze directly into it. No attempt to cover his mouth and his parents didn’t seem to care either. I was no longer interested in trying the chocolate fountain after that. 

Some visitors try foods from the bowls.

A college friend worked at a Chinese buffet. He said that they caught a regular dipping his pizza in the wonton soup bowl (like, in the queue and not at his table) and eating it. Bite, dip, bite, dip, bite, dip. After the fourth time in a month that he did this, management finally kicked him out. 

The kid who was about 6 or 7 wanted some gummi bears. So he went to the dessert bar, grabbed the serving spoon of gummi bears, and started eating off it like the bears were cereal, double-dipping several times. The parents were laughing and told him to stop, so he spit a mouthful of gummi bears out back onto the spoon and put them back. 

There might be something else on the plates, not just food.

I remember eating at a buffet with my sister one time when we looked up, contemplating going to get more food, and we saw one of the employees hitting flies with one of those tennis racket bug zapper things… Over the food… We immediately stopped eating, paid, and left. We never went back. A few months later the place closed and has been abandoned for about 6 or 7 years.

Perishable foods are not always treated properly.

I didn’t have a job and I really needed money. So I took a cook position without really knowing what I was getting into. We served lots of fried chicken. And then I was told that it was bought from people selling foods that were going to go bad very soon. The food was cheap and terrible. 

Food and dishes sometimes end up on the floor.

A guy I worked with grabbed a frozen ham, threw it on the floor, and used it as a step stool as it sat in grey dirty scummy dishwater. It was served later that evening during the Saturday dinner rush. 

What the description says is not always true.

Our university cafeteria had problems with mislabeling allergens on foods and I had to skip a lot of classes because of mislabeled foods that gave me allergic reactions. My friend once almost ate a fish stick that was labeled as chicken before she asked me to take a bite first and make sure she wouldn’t go into anaphylactic shock. 

Any mistake can be covered up.

One of my friends at work dropped an entire prime rib on the floor and those things cost the owner about 100 dollars each. So he just told us to rinse it off and wrap it back up. 

A buffet may run out of food, not because it didn’t make enough but because some visitors don’t care about others.

Chinese buffets are the best.

Chinese cuisine is very diverse. There are many different restaurants, street cafes, and boulevards where the ingredients are cooked. The food is often cooked right in front of you. And it’s done phenomenally. The workers are extremely professional and everything is delicious. 

My mom used to work at a place with an all-you-can-eat buffet and I remember her constantly telling me stories about how people went to the toilet to puke so they could eat more — it’s so crazy in my opinion. 

What’s your attitude toward all-you-can-eat buffets? Maybe you also know some secrets? Share them in the comment section below!