How All You Can Eat Restaurants Make Money

- It's all-you-can-eat pancake time at IHOP.

- Endless shrimp is back at Red Lobster.

- all-you-can-eat of this for $6.99?

- [Narrator] Unlimited food.

These restaurants give you all-you-can-eat

for one fixed price.

Sounds like a pretty good deal,

but how do these restaurants make any money?

The way buffets typically work is each person pays the same

fixed price for access to a line of self-serve dishes.

You grab a plate, fill it with food, eat, and repeat.

As many times as you want.

- This started in the 70s and the 80s,

and they were very popular.

I think it was kind of sign-of-the-time.

They were a family style restaurant,

they did not serve alcohol,

but it was a lot of food for not a lot of money.

- [Narrator] Popular chain restaurants that use this model

are Golden Corral, and Home Town Buffet.

Other all-you-can-eat buffets specialize in

one type of cuisine, like Chinese food, Indian food,

or different types of pizza.

The most obvious money saver for a buffet restaurant

is there's less need for servers.

- They don't need full wait staff because you're

getting your own food and bringing it to the table.

- [Narrator] But these restaurants apply another strategy

that's hidden in plain sight.

Pay attention to the layout of a buffet line.

Buffets often put cheaper, or more filling carbs

towards the beginning of the line.

- They would have a lot more menu items that had

good profit margins on them.

Then all of the sides and the carbs came before the entree

so that by the time you got your entree,

your plate was full.

- [Narrator] And to try and stop people from taking

more than they can eat, these restaurants might provide