Just yesterday I saw this report on the BBC about the Taybarns ‘all-you-can-eat’ culture … it apparently catches on well in the UK, it’s crisis after all and people don’t have the money to spend on high-end restaurants, or eating out in general … so, they go to …? Yes, Taybarns … one of the fastests growing restaurant chains in the UK now …
Feeding the less well off … the strong and well-build … giant food heaps for cheap … home cooked style comfort food … must be big money in that … :s
All-you-can-eat places are generally not a good value, in my book. The base price has to be more than I would normally spend on a meal, if the food is good quality, or else the food has to be of poor quality, in order to cover their costs for all the big eaters out there (amongst which I no longer include myself).
It’s like this bag of rubber bands I saw at Walmart. I needed a handful of good quality bands in a variety of sizes that wouldn’t deteriorate in Taiwan the way local ones do. A handful like that is worth a buck, IMO, and let’s say they make half that in profit, 50 cents. I was given only one choice at the stationery shelf, a bag ten times that size for five times the price I wanted to pay, and they profit $2.50 off of me.
Five times the profit level at which I would get a fair value for the desired quantity.
Food, rubber bands – same same.
No thanks.
I also don’t consider all-you-can-eat restaurants to be good. I just don’t think they’re good value for money and the food is poor quality, and in an effort to get something like my money’s worth, I end up grossly over-eating whenever I go to one and then feel horribly sick for the next couple of hours. There’s something really disgusting, bordering on the morally obscene about that kind of over-consumption (not to mention all the food that gets thrown out). Consequently, I try to avoid hotpot and barbeque restaurants these days. My wife and her Taiwanese relatives love them though and I think they relish the idea of being able to consume simply for the sake of consuming. They say they actually like that feeling of being super-full, but I can’t see how.