“To make the economics work for all-you-can-eat meat and potatoes, executives with the Golden Corral buffet chain watch not only what their customers consume, but also what they throw away.
If a dish isn't well-made, diners will chuck it and load their plates with other food, breaking the tricky math of unlimited meals for one set price.
"You can't fool the customer," said Lance Trenary, chief executive of the roughly 350-unit restaurant chain.
Cash-strapped consumers are clamoring for endless amounts of chips, fries or shrimp. Golden Corral and restaurants such as Olive Garden and Red Lobster are trying to capitalize, rolling out all-you-can-eat selections on their menus.
The deals are drawing in traffic, location-data firm Placer.ai said, as well as generating some needed buzz around the brands.
Yet making money off bottomless offerings has never been harder.
The problem: mounting food, labor and now fuel costs. Just about every supplier has tacked on fuel surcharges to Golden Corral's bills as diesel prices have shot up this year, Trenary said.
In addition, giving out endless amounts of bread, beef or shrimp can overwork servers, while high food costs, starting with record beef prices, can make it unprofitable and hard to pull off unless carefully managed, restaurant executives and workers said.
Golden Corral, the U.S.'s biggest buffet chain, has a lot riding on its ability to navigate the challenges. The company has kept U.S. sales stable in recent years, though a drop in Hispanic consumers more recently has hurt business.
It is asking operators to scrutinize every cost to keep charging from $15.99 to $18.99 for endless plates of sirloin for dinner, for instance, to try to outperform peers.
"This has been a difficult year for us, don't get me wrong," Trenary said. "We are trying to at least tread water."
Escalating food, gas and other prices have increased the appeal of all-you-can-eat deals among Americans. Only 13% of casual-dining operators offer all-you-can-eat options, but 53% of consumers are interested in such promos at those types of restaurants, according to a survey by market-research firm Datassential.
Restaurants are responding, with the biggest chains offering 150 all-you-can-eat deals in the first six months of this year, roughly quadruple 2021 levels, market-research firm Technomic said.
Applebee's offered unlimited wings, riblets and shrimp this summer, while Cracker Barrel is serving all-you-can eat pancakes Saturday. Olive Garden just brought back its Never-Ending Pasta Bowl for another season, inspiring diners to load up their bowls and document their eating orgy on TikTok.
And Red Lobster, which had a viral unlimited shrimp deal until declaring bankruptcy last year, brought back the promotion for a limited time on Mondays this year. The chain has since extended the deal, now offering it throughout the week for dine-in customers for now.
American buffets began on the Las Vegas Strip in the late 1940s. They were typically money-losers that helped keep patrons gambling rather than leaving to eat.
Restaurants elsewhere, however, adopted versions. Olive Garden started offering unlimited breadsticks, soup or salad soon after it opened in 1982. Texas Roadhouse's founder aimed for customers to get hooked on the smell of its fresh rolls served to all customers.
Golden Corral started as a North Carolina steakhouse in 1973, before shifting to an all-you-can-eat format in the late 1990s. The model worked for years, but sales plunged by more than half after the pandemic restricted indoor dining in 2020. They have largely recovered, and some of its busiest restaurants now ring up $7 million in annual sales.
To succeed as a business, all-you-can-eat depends on high traffic, particularly in locations with expensive rents, Trenary said. Losing 500 diners a week can spell trouble. Golden Corral lets its franchisees know where they rank in the overall system as to traffic and cost as a percentage of sales to keep them on track with their economics.
Golden Corral buffets average 150 food items, and chain operators know what each one costs to make. Meat tends to be most expensive, while potatoes and rice are on the cheaper side.
Golden Corral never hides higher-price items, Trenary said, but it does organize its buffets around meal "modules" that combine more expensive and affordable dishes. Buffet lines pair high-cost shrimp with more affordable hush puppies and french fries, or meatloaf with potatoes, gravy and green beans.
"We have to be pretty creative in the way that we present our menu," he said.
To combat climbing beef costs, Golden Corral recently introduced a whole, bone-in fried pork chop that costs about 40% as much as its sirloin steak, helping to shift some customers away from its priciest sirloin option.
Quality is key to reducing waste and repeated trips, Trenary said, so operators use demand data to know how much food to prepare down to 15-minute increments. The company eschews cooking ahead or food warmers, as that would degrade its quality and lead people to load up on other options. Operators also make around 80% of the items on the buffet in house.
Food costs account for around 38% of Golden Corral's sales, higher than the average restaurant. Labor costs are lower, with self-service buffets needing fewer servers than a traditional restaurant.
To keep costs manageable, operators need to keep utilities, rent and other costs to around 10% of their sales.
Chains running all-you-can-eat options also tend to push drinks, which come with an Lobster Punch drinks with its return of Endless Shrimp.
Like rivals, Golden Corral pushes drinks, which cost extra and increase sales. Its refillable in-house beverages sell for around $3.20. Most customers end up choosing something other than water for their meals.
Another key to the all-you-can-eat equation: You can't take it home, Trenary said.
"That would be really tough," he said about the profit implications of unlimited doggy bags.
As competition from all-you-can-eat deals grows, Golden Corral this month decided to take its buffets one step further. It is now offering 25 Bone-In Buffalo Wings or 50 Boneless Buffalo Bites for $25 for delivery.” [1]
1. Buffet Chain Cracks All-You-Can-Eat Code. Haddon, Heather. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 28 Sep 2026: A1.
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