Seriously, how do Chinese Buffets stay afloat?

[desura]

A local Chinese buffet has been offering a $4.99 buffet.

I've been there. The food isn't great, but it is serviceable.

It's actually cheaper to eat at the buffet, where you can get rice + a meat entree, cantaloup, tomatoes, mushroom soup, etc, all the standard stuff of a Chinese buffet, than it is to actually buy the ingredients yourself and cook for yourself.

How do they do it?

 

[jaedaliu]

volumes of scale!

That's a pretty cheap buffet. I would imagine the buffet is either a loss leader to drum up dinner business, or the food is mostly made with stuff that's about to go bad.

 

[Vdubchaos]

They buy bulk and dirt cheap. They also pay very little.

They survive on volume of customers....most likely.

 

[Fritzo]

I think a lot of those owners are families, and the family members work for free, therefore low overhead.

 

[kranky]

It could be that the buffet is only part of the business going on there. The rest of it might not be, shall we say, open to the public. Restaurants are good cover for other businesses that can't be advertised because the stream of people in and out doesn't attract attention.

 

[Josh123]

I still wouldn't eat it at $4.99

 

[desura]

I still wouldn't eat it at $4.99

I regret it every time.

But hell, it really is cheaper than going to the grocer.

You can also be somewhat intelligent and choose the "smart" foods to eat there.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Some kind of front or money laundering business. You need high volume of customers and transactions to create enough complexity to hide your side activities in. Easiest way to do that is to set the prices really low.

Or something.

 

[trmiv]

 

[JulesMaximus]

Yeah, I like the ones that offer sushi... I'm sure that's some good quality fish.

I avoid these places like the plague.

 

[Zeze]

Because if you carefully look at the food, it's all dirt cheap carb ingredients:

- Two different kinds of fried rice
- Two different kinds of noodles
- Chicken fingers are 30% chicken breast (which is cheap to begin with) + 70% batter
- Crab Rangoon is 80% batter/flour skin + 20% cream cheese
- Eggrolls are same & cheap, buy them by boxes.
- Dumplings too.
- Soup costs NOTHING.

That's already like 15 items on their buffet. Most people fill up on those. Throw in few moderately cheap dishes like beef, clams, mussels, and 1 tray of crab legs. You're got yourself a profitable buffet.

As long as the restaurant stays mildly busy, they're making money.

 

[UncleWai]

Road kills and expired/poisonous chinese imports.

 

[xeemzor]

Because if you carefully look at the food, it's all dirt cheap carb ingredients:

- Two different kinds of fried rice
- Two different kinds of noodles
- Chicken fingers are 30% chicken breast (which is cheap to begin with) + 70% batter
- Crab Rangoon is 80% batter/flour skin + 20% cream cheese
- Eggrolls are same & cheap, buy them by boxes.
- Dumplings too.
- Soup costs NOTHING.

That's already like 15 items on their buffet. Most people fill up on those. Throw in few moderately cheap dishes like beef, clams, mussels, and 1 tray of crab legs. You're got yourself a profitable buffet.

As long as the restaurant stays mildly busy, they're making money.

So which items provide the most value?

 

[jaedaliu]

So which items provide the most value?

For the consumer? the one you enjoy eating the most.

 

[rsutoratosu]

Theres a few good ones in nyc near me, weekdays is 25.99 and weekend is 32.99

the food is great and isn't cats.. real lobster and crabs, etc and general tso chicken

 

[NikolaeVarius]

So which items provide the most value?

More crab legs.

 

[Eug]

I generally have a hard time eating at those places. As mentioned, lots of batter (which would be odd for real chinese food anyway) and lots of starches, and cheap old vegetables, as well as over-tenderized cheap cuts of meat.

For $4.99 I'd rather just go elsewhere and get takeout with rice and a single mixed bok choy and beef dish cooked properly. No, I won't be stuffing myself silly on it because it's not all-you-can-eat, but that's probably better for my health anyway. A lot of Chinese restaurants around here have that kind of takeout, and the quality is immensely better than the buffets of fake Chinese food.

 

[mmntech]

Cheap carbs that fill you up, and sheer volume. There's chain of these buffets here in Ontario called Mandarin. Massive restaurants. There's one near my grandma's that's quite literally the size of a large supermarket. It's always packed too.

Mind you the buffet is not that cheap. About $20 a plate. Though that's what you pay at most restaurants these days.

Oh, yeah, here's the giant location I was talking about. It's in Brampton.
http://www.mandarinrestaurant.com/findus.asp

 

[Schfifty Five]

A local Chinese buffet has been offering a $4.99 buffet.

I've been there. The food isn't great, but it is serviceable.

It's actually cheaper to eat at the buffet, where you can get rice + a meat entree, cantaloup, tomatoes, mushroom soup, etc, all the standard stuff of a Chinese buffet, than it is to actually buy the ingredients yourself and cook for yourself.

How do they do it?

I bet the $4.99 doesn't include a drink. Drinks are probably a separate charge at $1.99+ and that's like 95% pure profit.

 

[Markbnj]

Around us they go out of business and change owners all the time. My daughter and I stopped in one not long ago that had a microwave with a sign "Use if food not hot."

 

[rh71]

Yeah, I like the ones that offer sushi... I'm sure that's some good quality fish.

I avoid these places like the plague.

Yeah the sushi rolls at those places are mostly rice and not much substance. Also cold and sometimes hard. You can trust sushi buffets that go for $20+ per person though. Some are better than others. They even serve chinese dishes so sushi buffets are where the good food is at. Chinese buffets have become pointless since sushi buffets have sprung up. That is unless you just want the cheapest food out there.

 

[dud]

They pay little for the oil ...

 

[GasX]

What they lose on each sale, they make up for in volume!

 

[richardycc]

It could be that the buffet is only part of the business going on there. The rest of it might not be, shall we say, open to the public. Restaurants are good cover for other businesses that can't be advertised because the stream of people in and out doesn't attract attention.

I believe that was a chain of Chinese buffet restaurants, that have since gone out of business, was using the restaurants to laundry money...They stuff they served were great, Peking duck, lobster, king crab legs, etc all that for $18-20/ppl. This is all speculation, I have no proof of that.

 

[Leyawiin]

They don't stay in business off of me. I have a local place that has a good lunch time steam table (not all-you-can-eat) - $5.99 for two items and rice or noodles. Its well made, not over salted and has a lot of veggies in the dishes. Its a small place so I can see the two cooks cutting up vegetables and chicken breast (not thighs) for the dishes. There's cheap, and then there's stupid cheap. I'll go with the former.