We’re big fans of the all-you-can-eat Chinese Buffet. It’s great with young children.
First, hygiene standards aren’t particularly high. Kids getting noodles and such all over the floor is just the price of business, a generous tip is enough.*
Second, there’s no waiting. As soon as you sit down, you get right up again to get your food. With kids, that’s a huge factor, the in-and-out time.
What’s my problem? The drinks. You sit down, and get your food, but someone comes by to get the drink order. That’s a separate charge. Then you have to depend on the service for refills, and of course service is not the focus of these places. We often find ourselves vainly searching around for the one waitress to refill the drinks.
The answer is obvious. The buffet should be all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink! It’s easier for patrons, it’s easier for staff, and it fits right in with the unlimited consumption theme. Just throw a Coke machine up near the food and let the customers at it.
*How much should you tip when the staff doesn’t wait on you? I’m doing most of the work here. On the hand, per my tipping theory, I should tip more at the cheap places. I usually do 10% rounded up to the nearest dollar.
See, you never thought you had it so good at Gepetto’s, where we had the all-you-can-drink soda machine available, but alas a) adding all-you-can-drink to the all-you-can-eat pizza cost an extra buck, which was a good half hour of Pinbot or 1/10th of a CD, and b) filling up on sugar-filled Coke would cut down on the amount of pizza you could eat — could be the difference between single and double digits!