The economics (& gastronomics) of unlimited buffet restaurants
Ever wondered how restaurants like Barbeque Nation offer unlimited buffets without running into huge losses?
If you are an Indian food lover then you’ll love the concept of an Indian buffet. It is an age-old tradition in India and has been existing for more than 500 years & is a popular method of feeding large numbers of people with minimal staff.
The concept of mass buffets or langars is still prevalent in many parts of the world where large congregations of people need to be fed especially after a religious ceremony, where the spread is not as lavish but the food is venerated as God’s offering or prasad. Everyone devours the prasad as it contains not just food but other unique ingredients like ambience, communal harmony and people helping each other by way of serving the meals, cleaning the dishes and organising the langar that make it a special experience.
Starters
Let’s start with their first offering- Drinks. Soft drinks are one of the cheapest and high-margin offerings by any restaurant and these are offered in many ways - either as unlimited refills or complimentary as part of the buffet.
How these seemingly innocuous drinks reduce your appetite is quite uncanny. First, you never reach out for water versus your fav soft drink as you want to get the most bang out of your buck. Secondly, those ice-cold and fizzy pops reduce your ability to digest, therefore giving you the signal of full stomach belying your actual appetite.
The idea is to make you drink them as much as possible so that you’re eating less food.
Appetizers
Next up is the food itself. The food placement in buffets is such that the cheap, filling stuff like salads and appetizers are at the front of the line. The purpose of this is to fill you up on the less costly items from the menu.
We all know that fruits and cruciferous veggies are super salubrious. We also know that salads are fulfilling, but when at a buffet remember to turn off the health freak inside you and kindly ignore the fibrous fruits and veggies to get the gut ready for gorging onto the carbs & proteins that come in the form of breads, rice and curries.
That’s how, pound for pound you will get the most bang for your buck.
Other tactics to save money are hidden in plain sight, such as using smaller plates to control your portion size or using small containers to serve expensive dishes.
Same Menu Daily (well almost!)
Regulars to a buffet or if you’ve stayed at a 4-5 star hotel that serves lunch and dinner buffets know that the main course almost stays the same(adding or subtracting a few seasonal dishes). It’s those popular and well-known dishes that everyone fills their plates with, that put the cherry on that cake to the strategic planning that’s involved in a buffet.
Let’s take an example of 3 popular Indian main course dishes- Dal Makhani, Shahi Paneer, Butter Chicken. You’ll find these at any good buffet. These are the OGs and staples of any Indian buffet and always in demand, so they can be made in large quantities without fear of spoilage because if there’s some leftovers, it can be easily stored in the fridge and served the next day.
There’s no rocket science behind preparing these dishes and if these 3 core dishes are bragworthy, they can even attract a large number of people through word of mouth, (that’s now Insta & Snap) who’ll come to try out out just these three dishes (or two if they’re vegetarian)
Self-service
Self-service allows restaurants to hire fewer staff, reducing labour costs saves them a lot of money.
Not only reducing labour cost, but also the number of complaints that come along with waiter service gets reduced by self service.
When people are made to do the effort of making themselves walk to the buffet counters, they are less likely to complain about the temperature, quality, or taste of the food because, in the first place, they went to the counters to either try something new or get a second helping of whatever they liked.
And the Economics!
What’s interesting is that their underlying principle is derived from economics i.e. the law of diminishing marginal utility- implying lesser satisfaction with successive consumption of a food item.
The Law Of Diminishing Marginal Utility states that, all else equal, as consumption increases, the marginal utility derived from each additional unit declines. Marginal utility is derived as the change in utility as an additional unit is consumed.
Sure, there are many customers who eat more than they can handle, but the losses due to these consumers are far less than the profit made from others.
So the equation is simple — profits are derived not just by increasing revenue but also by decreasing costs. Flat pricing ensures that customers keep going there, and they keep using tactics to keep their overheads to a minimum.
