I go to restaurants where they respect the food and the customers and don’t throw it around like a college cafeteria. Why the gimmick? The food has to be lousy if they need it to draw in customers.
The food is fantastic. Incredible. And it is because the food is so good that the roll throwing started.
The restaurant was incredibly popular and always crowded. The serving staff walks around with side dishes and it's all you can eat, including the rolls. In the 1970s, the owner brought hot rolls out from the kitchen on a tray, but was having problems getting to a regular who wanted a roll because of how crowded the place was.
The regular yelled "Just throw the damned thing!" which the owner did to the delight of the customers. From then on, people would just yell for the rolls to be thrown from the kitchen door and it soon became a tradition.
My grandparents were from a town near Sikeston and I ate there dozens of times as a kid. It is a fantastic place, the lines are still out the door, and they still throw hot rolls when you ask them to.