Endless Thread - All You Can Eat

Episode Date: December 13, 2018

Chicken patrol. Tiny plates. Purses lined with plastic bags. We peek behind the curtain of the strange world of all-you-can-eat buffets, from the strategies buffet owners use to protect their profits, to the hungry customers who try to game the system.

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Produced by the ILAP at WBUR, Boston. Amory. Benny. I think we better skip the appetizers on this one, like skip the amuse-boosh. You're saying let's just dig right in to the main course? Yeah, let us, in this holiday month of gluttony drink from the cup that overfloweth, let us mall the cornucopia, chipmunk our cheatsy. Let's fill our plate at the buffet.

Okay, so we're going to talk about this briefly famous Reddit post about an all-you-can-eat buffet in Ohio, my home state, the Buckeye State. Yeah, allegedly from Ohio, admittedly, this was a post on the legal advice subreddit which delivers a lot of, you guessed it. Legal advice. Granted, this subreddit is run or moderated by human lawyers and some little software programs pretending to be lawyers. I mean, there's only, I think, just under 20 of us, and that includes some bots. So the moderators are very good at the old disclaimer. We do not want to create anything approaching the appearance of an attorney-client relationship. This, by the way, is one of those 20 moderators, not a software program or bot, but a real-life human, named Shane, known on Reddit as Zanktmow.

And Zanktmau caught wind of this post from Ohio because, He's not just an attorney who is also a moderator of the legal advice subreddit. He is all of those things with an extra special skill. I became a moderator because I was exceptionally good at identifying trolls. Zangmow is good at spotting shenanigans before things get out of hand. And in the larger communities on Reddit, there can be some shenanigans. The legal advice subreddit is huge, 670,000 subscribers. And there are maybe 400 questions that can ask there every day with 10,000.

times the number of responses. And there's just no way to actually read every comment or post that comes through. So generally, you know, we only find out about something like this when people are reporting it. People were reporting this post from Ohio for shenanigans. Would you mind reading the post out loud? Uh, sure. Today, I went with a few friends to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet for lunch. There were six of us.

Me and one other person are both overweight. When we came in, the wait staff seated us, but when we said we'd be doing the buffet, she told us that he and I specifically weren't allowed to have it. She didn't speak much English. We're going to spare you some of the details here, but you get the idea. The proprietors of said all-you-can-eat buffet were supposedly worried about the customer's capacity to eat. So it's about this basic question. Are businesses allowed to refuse certain services on the basis of weight? If this is illegal, what is my next step?

But something about this post just didn't taste right. So to me, what jumped out was that it was almost the exact plot of a Simpsons episode. And for the gentleman. All you can eat, all you can eat. It may have been an all you can eat fish buffet.

I can't actually remember. You're talking about Homer. Oh, yeah. With like the kid, the captain, that like sea captain guy. And he's like, Arr. Tis no man.

Tis a remorseless eating machine. Also, Zangtimtim tem says there's a comedian that did a, shall we say, not politically correct routine, which we are not going to play, that was like The Simpsons episode, but in a Chinese restaurant. So it was kind of a combination platter, if you will, of plagiarism. The Post, the whole story about these people in Ohio getting kicked out of the All You Can Eat Buffet, it was fake. All You Can Eat Buffet story, we barely knew ye. Except here's what's weird. There are versions of this story. or stories like it, all over Reddit.

It's almost a Reddit trope. People who claimed to have eaten buffets out of business, other people recounting stories of beasting a bunch of food at a buffet before the manager kicked them out. There are echoes of this all over the site, almost like the crumbs of an epic meal. A myth of the mouth that keeps on munching. And after looking high and low,

we found one of those people who says the story, the real thing, happened to him. I thought this wasn't an All You Can Eat buffet. And she was like, well, it is, but generally people aren't in here this long. And I was like, you're kicking me out because I ate too much food. Yep. Today's episode, in honor of a weird American tradition of sorts, All You Can Eat.

I'm Ben Brock Johnson. I'm Amory Severson, and this is Endless Thread, the show featuring stories found on Reddit. We're coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station. Amory, is it strange that I find this topic fascinating? No. I mean, you love to eat. I love to eat. The all you can eat buffet is like the food lover's dream. Yeah, and I think this feels very American in a way.

Like the idea of a no-holds-barred, anything you want situation, this mix of indulgence and volume eating. Like, why do we think it's so attractive, though, as consumers? It's a good question. And it leads us to Chris DeBuque, aka Morfeng. a guy we found on Reddit who says he got booted from an all-you-can-eat buffet. Now, Chris grew up in Alabama and currently lives in Georgia, and he's painfully aware of his tendency to overeat. I have been known on more than one of it. Now, Chris is six feet tall, weighs just 150 pounds,

and I asked him why he loves to eat in such large quantities. I was in a lot of time being homeless, not eating, things like that. You know, I've experienced having a big breath of air for dinner. You know, it's a very unfortunate thing. And so I think as an adult, I have a bad habit of overeating to overcompensate for that, I guess. One of those occasions took place a few years ago when some of Chris's friends wanted to go to the American buffet chain restaurant, Golden Corral. You know, I knew it was a bad idea at the start because who's like, hey, I want to go to Golden Corral. But someone said it, and I was like, all right, maybe it's not so bad.

Let's give it a chance. And so I get there and I pay for everything and it's like $15 plus tax or something like that. It's mostly home-cooked food, well, home-style cooked food, steak and ribs and, like, pork roast. I don't play about salad either. I want every freaking vegetable they have in there, you know. I love vegetables. Do you have a strategy when you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet? Oh, absolutely.

This is the secret master plan that I'm revealing the first time of my life. We're honored. So here's the strats. You go in and the first thing you do, you get a ridiculously heavy meat and vegetables and mashed potatoes or whatever. That plate better weigh five pounds. I mean, there's no other acceptable way. And then you go in there and you just speed eat that first plate. You know, your stomach doesn't have enough time to process.

Holy crap, I just ate five. You shovel that first plate down as fast as you possibly can, and then you go for a plate of, like, maybe salad or something like that. And then, you know, for, like, plates three and four, I generally try to go for something, you know, something that's soupy or, like, liquidy or just soft that you can sort of shovel down. And then, you know, after that it's kind of a gamble, you know, depending on how hungry I am going into set buffet.

Chris's strategy, perfection, his execution. His execution, flawless, except... So, you know, I was enjoying the hell out of myself. So I get nine plates in, and then I had a manager walk up to, like, hey, so we see you've been enjoying our food, and we appreciate your business and all of this, but we need this table for other patrons, and you've been here two hours or so. What did you say back? I just sat there for a minute, and I realized what they were doing, and that they were about to ask me to leave.

And I was just like, oh, no. And I was like, so are you asking me to leave because I ate too much food? And she was like, well, no, we just, we need the table for other patrons that there was so many tables for you. Like, I thought this was an all-you-can-eat buffet. And she was like, well, it is, but generally people aren't in here this longer. They don't eat this much food. and I was like, that's the confirmation I was looking for. They don't eat this much food.

You're kicking me out because I ate too much food. And that's fine. Just call it what it is. Did you feel sick after eating nine plates of food? Oh, my God. Absolutely. I don't always make the smartest decisions. My stomach gets very mad at me very frequently. Chris says that after that experience, aside from that one time,

he went just to try dipping steak in the chocolate fountain, he did pretty much stop going to Golden Corral. And other than that one detail about steak in a chocolate fountain, I'd say Chris's story is perfect. It's like all you ever wanted to know about the all-you-can-eat dining customer, and then some. Appropriate for a conversation about all-you-can-eat buffets, right? Like we went there and then we kept going, and that was only like plate two. It's time for plate three.

No. Oh, yeah, we're going back to the buffet bar. But for good reason, more, so much more, piles and piles of more in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to, get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew.

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reach new audiences, whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. Okay, so we've heard from a recent buffet eater, but where did the idea of the All You Can Eat Buffet come from? Well, originally from Sweden in the early 18th century. Zsmorgasbord? The smorgasbord. But one of the key differences between the Swedish smorgasbord

and the American buffet is that there's an order to the smorgas board that's supposed to prevent you from grabbing all the food at once. But here at America, whole different story. Speaking of which, Amory, have you seen any of the Chevy Chase vacation movies? No. Okay, so these movies are comedy classics and they star Chevy Chase as this guy Clark. And in this scene, a penniless Clark is going to a All You Can Eat Buffet, Vegas style, with his kind of trashy brother-in-law and aunt.

I'm going to ask you to describe what is happening. Eddie, thanks for buying me dinner. Best buck 49, bouquet. The kids are scooping large amounts of slop onto their plates. We only need one plate. This guy has pulled a bag out of his pockets. He's got this large bag that he just had stuffed down his pants. He is shoving rolls into the bag.

They're sharing a plate, which is hilarious to me. Why are they sharing a plate? Because that way they only have to pay for one. Oh, okay. And now they're eating. Oh, you can hear those noises. Now they're eating some of their various slop. Oh, this is foul, Ben.

This is... It's pretty foul. Yeah. I think I'm fine, never going to another all-you-can-eat buffet. But forget the eating part for a minute, Amory. When it comes to running a buffet business, there's a whole science involved. A science we know, thanks to this guy. Hi, this is Jordan.

Jordan's a Redditor and a connoisseur of Reddit's food-related communities. He's worked for years in restaurants and restaurant management, and now he is one of those food industry jobs that you might not even realize exists. At his current job, he works for a food supply company, but his actual day job is advising the customers of that company, which are restaurants. He helps restaurants run their business. business better so that his company can do better. And he covers a pretty big region. From northwest Kentucky, down to Jackson, Mississippi, over to Little Rock, Arkansas, and just west

of Nashville. Since Jordan covers a lot of ground, he's a good person to answer the question of whether all you can eat is a popular business model. They are extremely popular, mainly because I think the ease of entry. It doesn't take a lot of specific training. You're baking. You're basically cooking the food in the back of house, setting it on a line, and charging customers as they come in or as they leave. Okay, so that's pretty straightforward. Restaurants are complicated businesses to run. That's part of why so many of them go under. Buffets seem less complicated.

They also make this argument to the consumer, that they make it easier to please the whole family. Pretty much buffet started as a trend in the 70s and 80s is just kind of a more. of a family restaurant as opposed to fine dining. Look what the sizzler has for you. Alaskan crab claws. And the idea there being, hey, like, you can get lots of different kinds of things. It's kind of more sexy in that way. It's sort of like a decadent option, but at a reasonable price.

Right. I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's diverse options to make everybody in the family happy. She finds Ponderosa's endless salad bar. It's endless because you can always start over again and again and again. And then, of course, the tagline of all you can eat, or as they say now, all you care to eat. I did not know there was a new phrase. All you care to eat.

Oh, yes, yes. Because, you know, buffets are healthy now, didn't you know? Healthy or not, there's still a question here about how buffets can do business by offering people in a limited amount of food for a static price. Like even if our Beast Eater Chris is the outlier, isn't this just a crazy business model? Jordan, how do they do it? You're saving money on labor.

That's why most buffet chains exist is because they've cut out that whole piece of a service staff. So if they have a little bit higher food costs because of some unforeseen gluttony or theft, they've made it up on labor cost. Unforeseen gluttony and theft is like a title of something. My memoir, Unforeseen gluttony and theft. That is their biggest concern, is food waste, theft, and people kind of overindulging.

Abusing the system. Correct. If they're going to send out beverages for a person to take. take to go or, you know, hey, would you like to take that drink to go? They actually, instead of giving the customer just the cup, they fill the cup with the liquid to prevent people shoving food into the cup and taking it with them. This is nuts. It's one of those things where you expect humans to act with decorum, and they just don't.

And it gets worse. Apparently, there are also cases of little ladies lining their purses with grocery bags and shoving food in there. Oh my God. The little old lady lining the purse with the grocery bag, moo. Yep, just think of the golden girls. I thought I was the only one who used that. This is giving me ideas.

Yeah. So it's, I mean, they, they're, it's turned into, in some of these areas, more of a policing operation. Another preventative measure for buffet owners, what Jordan calls, chicken patrol. What's the chicken patrol? That's what everyone's stealing off the buffets, either chicken strips or catfish strips. Oh. How come? Just because, like, protein?

Exactly. They know where the big food cost item is. That's what they're taking home. I just want to say I bet little old men steal things, too. It's not just the old ladies. Well, little old men don't have a lot of purses, though. You can only fit so much of the old man wallet. It could bring backpacks or fanny packs.

I bet there's some fanny packs full. of chicken wings out there. In fairness, Chris was a young guy, so let's not be too agist about the profile of buffet food maximizers. Also, Amory. Yes. Chicken Patrol was the name of my band in high school.

How'd that work out for you, Ben? Needless to say, we're not famous. No. Oh, it's weird. I'm just kidding. But this is fascinating, right? There's this whole game of cat and mouse where the buffet runners and the buffet eaters are trying to outsmart each other. And it's wild how detailed this game of cat and mouse gets.

Not just in terms of buffet abuse, but like right down to the actual buffet line itself. It's there in plain sight, right under the glass sneeze shield. It's a little bit like the carnival. You know, if you've ever played the basketball game and you're trying to shoot the ball into the hoop, well, that hoop is actually not a regulation hoop. And most of the plates that buffets buy are strictly from plateware lines called buffet lines, and they're actually smaller than your typical plate, so that a customer is less likely to overeat.

Another thing that's right under your nose but may not be obvious is that the high-cost stuff is at the end of the line. Sometimes you'll see buffets with snow crab legs or, you know, beef. And so the front of the line is going to have things like potatoes, coleslaw, so that by the time you get to the end, well, you've already filled your plate, let me just have one or two of these things

rather than starting the other way around. And I would just start at the back of the line. Whoa, sweet. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You go to wherever the buffet line is instead of just going where everyone else is going, you go the other way. You go to the opposite. Start with the proteins, man. Swim upstream. There you go. Whether or not you're clued in enough

to game the system. One question that remains is why haven't all you can eat buffets completely taken over? Because of buffet-specific challenges, like food waste. Even with their ease of entry and advantages like not having to hire a highly trained weight staff, buffets are still a tricky business. And it's a business where standards have declined over time. Yeah, food quality is also a way that buffet owners combat cost. And that's kind of what has led to. the overall decline of buffets. I'll give you an example. I did a little research for you guys.

Between 1998 and 2017, the number of buffets dropped by 26%, while the number of actual restaurants overall rose by 22%. Whoa, why is that? Well, because of the rise of Applebee's, TGI Fridays, Olive Garden, Outback, all those kind of casual dining concepts. It's got to be Applebee.

Applebee's Worth saying here though that even though they're different these concepts do have some buffet moves like at Olive Garden which has unlimited breadsticks or as I like to call it endless bread

By that time buffets had kind of gotten the stigma attached to them deserved or not of not having as good a quality of food I recently saw a video of a guy sampling soups at a buffet by drinking them straight out of the ladle.

Straight out of the ladle. But Jordan says at the end of the day, it might not be a stigma that kills buffets off. It might be something even more American than gluttony. Convenience. Well, really, the biggest threat to buffet owners is actually the rise of mobile ordering. They're currently projecting the National Restaurant Association. It's currently projecting that up to... to 70% of restaurant items will actually be eaten in people's homes by the year 2020.

So very hard to accomplish buffet eating and ordering if you're eating at home. Says you. I mean, if I just line my purse with a bag, then I'm all good to go. Jordan, thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you guys. It was a lot of fun. Of all the bites we've taken out of this story, Ben, there's still something we've chewed on a little bit, but have yet to fully swallow and digest. I see what you did there, and I like it.

It's the question we started with. The question on that fake Reddit post, can you be kicked out of an all-you-can-eat buffet because of your size? Right. And Chris got himself booted for other reasons, so... Let's hear it from Zankmau, the legal advice moderator. Have you ever dealt with... with discrimination suits? Like, did this feel like, even though it's clearly plagiarized, did this feel like it could have been a real scenario?

No, not even close. I mean, it could have happened for sure. But being morbidly obese is not a protected class, I believe, in any state in the union. You know, you could deny service based on that. Ben, I think there's only one thing left for us to include here. Hmm. Just desserts. hilarious no though yes i do believe that is what the true buffet pro should really start with but

no i'm talking about our trip to the all you can eat lunch buffet oh yeah where are we shana punjaub what is it why are we here indian restaurant okay they have a lunch buffet all you can eat buffet so wait wait wait wait what's your before we go in what's my technique yeah do you remember the techniques I just go in I do like a mental taste of everything where I just, you know, I just eyeball it all. Okay. I don't know.

This is weird. Okay, go on. I like it. Okay, I go in. And I do the eyeball taste. And then I just, I decide what I'm going to prioritize. Right. So that if there's room for anything else.

Endless thread is a production of WBUR Boston's NPR station in partnership with Reddit. Our show is a dream realized by Jessica Alpert, and when we asked her to come to a buffet with us, she said, Not my job. Iris Adler is our executive producer, and her strategy for tackling buffets is to get motivated.

Got some soup. I'm just going to ask. Do you remember this? They said avoid the soups. Oh, very wise. Change of plan. Moving on. I'm avoiding the soups, and I'll tell you why later. Mix in sound design by Paul Vicus,

who described all you can eat restaurant, says, mildly awesome. Our web producer is Megan Kelly, and when she is not on chicken patrol, she is looking out for wholesome memes. Michael Pope is our advisor at Reddit, and his friends were kicked out of a buffet for acting like... Animals being bros.

Josh Swartz is our producer, and he found his lawyer on a subreddit called... Just neckbeard things. Extra production assistance from James Lindberg. Our intern these many months has been Candice Lim. Candice's internship is over, but she is on to big, exciting things. Candice, good luck, farewell, thank you. Our theme music is by Squelcher.

Thanks to Redditor unique username 935 for this week's artwork. It is called Dinner by the Wayside. Also, huge thanks for Shauna Punjab and Brookline for letting us record in there and letting us eat. They're all you can eat lunch buffet. The food is really good. you should go, even if you're just a buffet eating amateur like Amory. Now that we let the amateur go, we're going to do this pro. I'm going to go double chicken right now.

Double chicken? Double chicken, because I'm not a chicken. Okay. On Reddit, we are endless underscore thread. If you want to contribute art for an upcoming episode or give us a juicy story tip so that we can tell it like we did today, get us up there. By the way, when you do and you go to our page, hit that follow button so that we can be in touch with you on Reddit.

My co-host and producer is Amory Sievertson. I'm senior producer and host Ben Brock Johnson. I'll let myself out. I've made a mortal strategic error. How? What'd you do? Two things. One, I got really excited about the deep fried items. Yeah.

And I just, I had some of those. And then you went back. You've had a second plate. I did. You're the only person of the three of us, Josh, our silent partner. You're the one person of the three of us who went and got a second plate. You know, some people just can't handle the all you can eat, and others can.

I started with the vegetables. Oh, come off it with the vegetables. I did. I started with the vegetables. Started with it. You're a vegan. That's the only place you could go. You didn't start there.

I started. I started, continued, middled and ended with the vegetables, as pre-usual. Meanwhile, I'm just rolling around in chicken teakamassala, which is basically like honey and cream and chicken. So what we really need to do is to check back in with you at a couple hours. See how I'm feeling? See how your stomach's doing. I'll be asleep in five minutes.

I'm like looking for a place to be prone right now. This bar would do. There's a big booth over there. We can just tuck you in. Take you back up tomorrow. Give me a little tablecloth. Wrap it around me. Tuck me in.