Posted on 10/06/2012 4:50:36 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
George Dalmon, a former rugby player, and his friend Andy Miles were banned from all-you-can-eat restaurant, Gobi, In Brighton, after the manager branded them "a couple of pigs".
The men would each eat five bowls of stir-fry during their regular meals at the Mongolian barbecue, which invites guests to create their own dishes from the buffet.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Guys that spend $10 to eat $30 worth of food aren’t your best customers. At an all you can eat place your best customers are the ones that fill up on a single plate.
How are they the restaurants best customers? Because they are prime evidence that the food is good and there’s plenty of it. For every guy like these two, there are many women and children who will come in and eat very little. Now, in you local advertising, who would you use? The big guys or the picky little women and kids who don’t appear to want to eat your food? You aren’t from the UK, are you?
They may not be your best customers.. but they’re still customers. They are handing you money for your product.
From a PR standpoint there are better ways to handle this.
Up the price and buy more food. Use them. They are obviously fond of the restaurant.
But you're both still voting.
No, thank G-d! I'm an American and damn proud of it!
As a teenager, I worked at Wendy’s. I enjoyed taking care of the salad bar (and had customers actually tell me it was only good when I did it). A couple of weekends in a row, I saw a woman go to the bar with her takeout plate, fill up the lid with fillers (no lettuce) and leave.
After a couple of times, the manager told her she wasn’t welcome. I didn’t get it at first (the salad bar was “all you can eat”... how do you run afoul of that?). He explained that she was loading up on all of the expensive items in the lid of her dish so she only had to buy a head of lettuce to have salad all week at our expense.
People do abuse a good deal.
If they don’t really mean “all you can eat”, then they shouldn’t advertise “all you can eat”. It’s the English language. Those words mean something.
If they want to say “2 plates full of all you can eat,” then say that.” If they mean “all you can eat in 1 hour maximum, then say that.”
But, like you say, for every one of these over-eaters, there are lots of tiny women who will nibble and pick at very little food.
But, like my wife says: “Everyone always sneezes, coughs all over, or handles the food in those ‘all you can eat restaurants.’”
They really do. I’ve watched.
ROFL! One of my favorite episodes...and I forgot that line!
Aaaaa help yourself sir.
In the early 50s I used to go to Rands Roundup in Glendale California about 10:30 and have all you can eat prime rib and at 12:00 they would shift over to breakfast and we would eat that until 2:00+ for $2.25.
back in my youthful (and poor) hippie days I had a friend that loved to go....went several times with him..he’d stuff himself and then purge and go back for more...I could never understand it....id stuff myself too but I was happy with the deal....his happiness with the meal was “getting over†on the restaurant.
Getting over on the restaurant by wasting food. Wonderful logic there. sarc/
Just because they’re customers doesn’t mean you want them to be customers. Some people are just no good, and the right way to handle them is to boot them and let it be public, let the people that abuse the system no they can’t there.
Normal restaurants make almost no money on food, the source of profit is drinks. Throw “all you can eat” on the sign and the amount of money you make on the food goes from almost zero to zero. Now you really need drinks.
Then you get two fat guys coming in, not getting drinks, and eat much more food than your average customer. Since they’re not getting drinks your potential for profit is gone, and then they eat a bunch more than normal people, now they’re taking money out of your pocket. Obviously they’re fond of the restaurant, who isn’t fond of getting more than they paid for. That doesn’t mean you should be fond of them. Kick em out. You’ll find you get more customers, because there’s a crowd of people in this world that see all you can eat places as where fat people go to be gross, and they don’t want to watch that. When word gets out you prefer customers that exercise self control you gain fans. And you lose the dump trucks.
Though I like GC, going to them often enough gets tiring.
Though buffets are ok, I've come to realize how blah of an experience they are.
Value wise they can be ok to good. The problem is is that their food is mediocre. Mediocre this, mediocre that...you STUFF yourself on mediocre. Everything always LOOKS good. But you try a little of this, a little of that and a little of something else and all of this is just mediocre. You end up with a piled plate. A stuffed stomach, to the point of discomfort.
I love Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. The food is GOOOOOOD. And you just can't seem to eat enough of it. You eat to the brink of discomfort, but the food was oh so good.
A couple of months ago I stopped at a really nice casino and ate at their buffet. The restaurant was REALLY nice. The selection very nice. This DEFINETLY wasn't Golden Corral. But at $26 dollars a person, it shouldn't be. The problem was, though the food was good, it wasn't ...I don't know...can't think of the right word. The food was good, it just wasn't GOOD.
At $26, I'd rather sit down for a GOOD steak dinner without dessert. I will be comfortably filled, but would have ENJOYED the meal.
I've always wanted to go on a cruise. Being that I enjoy eating, I have always relished the idea of their buffets. But now, my thoughts are, if a cruise ships buffet is anything like other places buffets, whats the big deal? Whats so special about luke warm shrimp or prime rib? I'd rather have a GOOD, and hot, steak.
I see it differently from you I guess.
Maybe you’re not making a great profit.. but you can’t blame that on the customers. It’s up to the business to up the prices or change the menu.
And if these guys really like the food, they give you an opportunity to advertise. Heck give them free food if they’ll appear in your commercials.
There is nothing good or attractive about greed...
Guys that spend $10 to eat $30 worth of food aren’t your best customers. At an all you can eat place your best customers are the ones that fill up on a single plate.
Yup. Don’t take advantage.
I’ve worked food service. I know the math. I’ve seen all you can eat blow up. And I’ve seen it work.
Actually you not only can but you MUST blame it on the customers when they’re deliberately shrinking their bill AND your profit. Why should the business increase the prices for everybody because of two fat lazy SOBs taking advantage of the business? If the regular customers are dining profitably then the price is fine, the problem is the guys that are deliberately screwing you. No reason to punish the masses for these two, it’s not the masses fault.
Fat slobs aren’t an advertising opportunity. “Hey come eat with these fat guys that probably don’t have great taste in food but they have figured out how to get a lot of food for cheap” isn’t good advertising. It draws exactly the wrong crowd. You want people that buy drinks, fill up fast, and get out. Exactly the opposite of these guys. If you’re gonna pick customers to use in your ads you want the ones that only eat one plate and still feel they got their money’s worth.
I wish folks understood how the whole tipping thing worked..
Bread. Stores longer. Spoilage makes salad very expensive. But definitely worship the one platers.
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