On 2011-02-16, Christine Dabney wrote:
OK. Here's my contribution, a dose of reality!
I worked at a private buffet diner. Cleaned the place every night
after closing, while I was going to college. Small place, intimate
booth dining, wall-wall carpeting, all food made in house. Some
decent food, occasionally some great food (king crab!).
Whatta freakin nightmare!
First and formost, the dishes you are considering are prohibitively
expensive. Buffets, or Smorgasbords as they are sometimes called, are
not good with high price points. Sure there are a few, like the
Ritz-Carlton at HalfMoonBay w/ its $100 buffet breakfast, but they are
rare and have the support of the SFBA gentry. Most are based on a
sub $10-15 price point. Even more expensive one's like that Asian
Buffet that hit the SFBA several years back ($14-18) has died. I can
see why, as the food really sucked!
First, you gotta have huge food storage. Walk-ins that will hold the
entire buffet, as food is not prepared by dish, but by gross amts,
none of it always eaten and left-overs must be stored for next day.
So, you must have enough storage for the unprepared food as well as
the already prepaired food. HUGE expense in both initial cost and
maint. The one I worked at had two. Smaller walk-in for meats and
much larger one for salads and veggies. Fortunately, I was never
tasked with cleaning the meat walk-in. Thank goodness. The stench
was overwhelming (think spoilage-expense). The six foot high Hobart
mixer (expense) had a permanent colony for roaches, despite several
attempts by an pro exterminator (expense). They were kept
"manageable".
One MAJOR expense in this kinda business is plain and simple waste. I
was always stunned to discover how underhanded and disgusting the
customers could truly be. My major task was to thoroughly clean the
dining room floor (carpet) every night. Move every table/chair, clean
every booth. It was horrifying.
The amount of food dumped under the booth tables was, at the very
least, astonishing. Ppl would dump whole platefulls of food on the
floor under the table and, I guess, go back for more. I'm talking
un-eaten food. Three or four pcs of un-eaten chicken, half plate of
mashed potatoes w/ gravy and dressing and sides. Pork chops, ribs,
veggies, whole un-eaten salads. Often, it looked like an entire table
of four would routinely dump all their plates under the booth table,
more than once!! This was the norm, not the exception, at least one
in three booths revealing this insanity every night. Rarely did a
single booth NOT indicate some degree of dumping. I could have fed an
orphanage with the untouched food I picked up off the floor, nightly.
Same with sugar/salt/pepper shakers, the entire contents emptied on
the floor, jes outta plain orneryness. That's all waste. While I
wasn't there to see it, I also heard about the theft. Bags of food.
Four or five full servings in purses, bookbags, shopping bags, etc.
This is all overhead.
The first time I really deep cleaned the carpet, a dusk-to-dawn job
with a commercial constant flow machine, owned by the resto, not
rented (expense), I was shocked to discover the carpet was actually a
patchwork print of bright primary colors, not completely wall-to-wall
dark brown. That's how much food ended up on the floor.
If I was to try this sorta business, I'd go with a hofbrau. Much more
control. The smorga I worked at no longer exists, the price of food
rising too high to continue. If they were still in business and
serving the same food, they'd be charging $25-35 per person and I
didn't even consider it very good food. I rarely ate their fare,
despite having permission to do so. The only exception was the king
crab! I could gorge till sick every Tues night. I think I've eaten
10 lifetimes of king crab.
I've seen Indian and Chinese restos pull off a pretty decent lunchen
buffet, but have only been to two full blown buffet restos since that
time in college. Country Time and that now-gone Asian buffet resto.
They both sucked. I've never seen a decent breakfast buffet,
anywhere, the scrambled eggs and crappy pancakes strictly garbage can
fodder, in my opinion. I'd like to try that $100 buffet at the HMB
R-C, with its champagne, caviar, and pheasant, but I bet the scrambled
eggs would still be overcooked and dried out.
nb
