There’s something oddly American about walking into a restaurant, paying one fixed price, and eating until your belt screams for mercy. The buffet was once the ultimate dining democracy, a place where crab legs sat next to fried chicken without judgment. Families gathered for Sunday brunch, retirees stretched their dollar at lunch, and road trippers filled up at Golden Corral locations off every interstate. It felt permanent, like a culinary institution that would outlive us all. Yet in the last several years, something has fundamentally changed. Buffets are vanishing from the American landscape at an alarming pace, and the reasons go far deeper than just pandemic fears.
The Pandemic Delivered the First Brutal Blow
Garden Fresh Restaurants, which operated the popular Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes chains, shuttered all 97 locations in March 2020 after losing roughly one million dollars per week. The CEO admitted that FDA recommendations against salad bars and buffets made their entire business model impossible to sustain. That was just the beginning.
Golden Corral, the nation’s most recognizable buffet chain, saw only about 290 of its pre-pandemic 490 restaurants open by early April 2021, with two of its largest franchisees filing for bankruptcy and permanently shutting down 16 locations, while sales dropped by 62% in 2020. K&W Cafeterias, an 88-year-old chain, closed all nine of its remaining locations on December 1, 2025, after filing for bankruptcy in 2020. The sanitary concerns were real, the financial damage catastrophic.
Food Costs Have Skyrocketed Beyond Buffet Economics
Food and labor costs each account for approximately 33 cents of every dollar in sales for restaurants, leaving a pre-tax profit margin of roughly 5% for a typical restaurant. Now imagine operating on that razor-thin margin when your business model encourages unlimited consumption.
In the last five years, food and labor costs for the average restaurant have each gone up by 35%. Buffets can’t simply raise prices proportionally without driving customers away. The economics that once worked when chicken cost pennies and beef was cheap have completely fallen apart. Food costs at buffets run 4 to 6 percent higher than standard restaurants because of increased leftovers and waste, and when cooking to order is eliminated, cooked leftovers cannot be worked off with daily specials.
The pricing squeeze has become unbearable. Inflation hit every ingredient from cooking oil to napkins, yet buffet operators found themselves trapped between rising costs and customer expectations of value.
More Than a Thousand Buffets Have Disappeared
In the past 20 years, more than 1,300 buffets have shut their doors, with Old Country Buffet down to 17 of its 350 original locations, HomeTown Buffet closing 217 of its 250 eateries, and Ryan’s Buffet downsizing from 400 to just 16. These aren’t small regional chains closing a few underperforming stores. These are massive, multi-state operations that once defined American casual dining.
Ovation Brands, the conglomerate that owns these chains, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy three times since 2008. By 1998, 26% of American buffets had already closed their doors, and in 2016 the once popular chain HomeTown Buffet filed for bankruptcy. This wasn’t a sudden pandemic problem. The decline had been underway for decades, slowly strangling an entire category of restaurant.
Delivery Apps Have Completely Changed the Game
Here’s something most people don’t think about: buffets can’t do takeout. You can’t DoorDash unlimited crab legs. Industry experts attribute the decline partly to food delivery apps, with the National Restaurant Association projecting that by 2030, 80% of all restaurant items will be eaten at home, a trend that buffets can’t effectively capitalize on.
The rise of Uber Eats, DoorDash, and GrubHub fundamentally changed how Americans eat. Why drive to a buffet when you can scroll through dozens of cuisines on your phone? The convenience factor that once made buffets attractive – quick service, no waiting for food – became irrelevant. Fast-casual restaurants adapted. Buffets couldn’t.
The Cultural Stigma Has Become Real
Buffets are now considered painfully uncool, going the way of the classic white-tablecloth fine dining place, and no one Instagrams their buffet meal. That might sound superficial, yet it reflects a genuine shift in dining culture.
Health-conscious consumers have shifted away from quantity in favor of experience-driven dining options. The optics of piling a plate high with carbs no longer appeals to a generation raised on Instagram-worthy presentations and craft cocktails. Buffets became associated with excess, waste, and low-quality food, whether deserved or not. The perception problem became impossible to shake.
Food Waste Creates an Unsustainable Model
Buffets produce more food waste than other restaurants due to more uneaten food on plates and service counters, with buffet-style restaurants widely recognized as the most food-waste-generating service operations due to large portions, unnecessary menu choices, unpredictable demand, and customer behavior. Think about what that means operationally. A buffet must be as fully stocked 5 minutes before closing as at the start of the meal period, and food choices are entirely different from regular menus, so leftovers cannot be worked off with daily specials, thus increasing waste.
All-you-can-eat buffets generate more food waste than any other restaurant format and bring in $8 billion annually in the U.S., with over 70% of this waste being plate waste – food diners serve themselves but leave uneaten. As sustainability becomes a bigger concern for both consumers and municipalities, buffets find themselves on the wrong side of environmental responsibility. Some cities have even implemented food waste regulations that make the buffet model financially punitive.
Labor Savings Don’t Actually Exist Anymore
The old theory was simple: buffets save money on waitstaff because customers serve themselves. While buffet service requires fewer servers in the dining room, dining room servers are paid minimum wage less the tip credit, which in states using federal minimum wage means servers are paid just $2.15 per hour. The labor savings were never as significant as operators believed.
Meanwhile, back-of-house labor became more expensive. You still need line cooks constantly replenishing dozens of dishes. You need dishwashers handling mountains of serving equipment. The pandemic made labor even more expensive as restaurants competed for workers. Buffets couldn’t offer the flexibility or tips that made other restaurant jobs attractive. Staffing became a nightmare.
Franchisees Are Walking Away and Going Bankrupt
Golden Corral currently operates 305 restaurants, down from 490 before 2020, with Platinum Corral, the chain’s second-largest franchisee, declaring bankruptcy and permanently shutting down 16 of its 28 restaurants. Another Golden Corral franchisee, South Texas Corral LLC, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2025, listing $150,000 in assets and $1.64 million in liabilities.
These aren’t isolated incidents. Multiple Golden Corral locations have closed abruptly in 2024 and 2025, often shocking employees who learned about closures during their shifts. According to reports and comments from employees, Golden Corral closures came as a complete surprise. Franchise owners are reaching the end of their contracts and choosing to sell the real estate rather than reinvest. The writing is on the wall.
