If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI Is Changing Everyday Work, at
https://netsuite.com/modernmba
In the 1980s and 1990s, all-you-can-eat buffets were everywhere. Old Country Buffet, HomeTown Buffet, Ryan's, Fresh Choice, Sweet Tomatoes, Golden Corral. For six dollars at lunch or nine at dinner, a family could eat unlimited fried chicken, pot roast, pasta, salad, and dessert. The biggest chain was opening more than one restaurant a week and grossing close to a billion dollars a year.
Then, starting in 1994, the customers stopped coming. Same-store sales went negative and stayed negative for five straight years. Nothing about the restaurants had changed. Prices had barely moved. The buffets were still full of food, and the dining rooms were emptier every year, and nobody inside the industry could explain why.
Every one of the big buffet chains has since gone bankrupt. Fresh Choice in 2004. Buffets Inc in 2008, 2012, 2016, and finally 2021. Souplantation died in weeks when the pandemic hit. Las Vegas had 35 buffets in 2000 and has 7 today. The only all-you-can-eat concepts still growing are Korean BBQ, hot pot, and Brazilian steakhouse, where the format is not the point.
In this Modern MBA episode, we look at how the all-you-can-eat buffet went from one of the fastest-growing restaurant formats in America to a business that no one will ever build again.
Companies and topics in this episode: Old Country Buffet, HomeTown Buffet, Buffets Inc, Ryan's, Fresh Choice, Sweet Tomatoes, Souplantation, Golden Corral, Sizzler, Ponderosa, Luby's, Morrison's Cafeteria, Chinese buffets, Las Vegas buffets, Rio Carnival World Buffet, Boston Market, Chipotle, Sweetgreen, leveraged buyouts, Chapter 11 bankruptcy, restaurant unit economics, food cost, labor cost, minimum wage, and franchising.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SUPPORT MODERN MBA - we're 100% independent, self-funded, and committed to making business education free for everyone.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌐 Website:
https://modern-mba.com
Search our entire catalog, browse videos by industry, read summaries + key takeaways, swipe through charts — no ads, no emails, no pop-ups!
📸 Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/modern.mba/
🎵 TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@modernmba
💬 Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/modernmba/
☕ Support Modern MBA:
https://buymeacoffee.com/modernmba 
Comments (0)