Buffet Manners

[scott123]

There is a (not very good) sushi buffet 'round here that has a sign posted reading "You will be charged $1.00 for each piece of rice you leave on your plate."    I guess people were taking nigiri sushi, peeling the fish off, and going back for more.

Minado, or something of that ilk, no doubt ... Atkinsing people would not eat the rice and did precisely what you have described .... and it is why the owners inevitably have to say or post something ... stands to reason ...

I have seen signs like those at sushi buffets dating well before the Atkins craze. Sushi at all you can eat buffets tends to very light on the fish, so people will fill up on the much cheaper rice instead. I've heard stories of people getting very creative in hiding sushi rice.

I'm definitely not on the side of wasting food, but at the same time, the ratio of rice to fish at some of these places is fairly ridiculous.

[whippy]

where i work (which isn't a buffet) ANYTIME a plate of food comes back untouched we have a simple policy. with great concern and tact, and if we're feeling very proud of a certain dish with a bit of hurt feeling, we simply ask: was everything okay?

it communicates our concern, and more importantly gives us feedback, which any smart restaurant should be regarding. sometimes people will simply say their eyes were bigger than their stomach, and sometimes people will tell us it was too salty for them. but the servers all know to ask about any unfinished food. and the servers all know to let managers know what a "finicky eater" has to report. over the long run, this creates less and less unfinished food. i think this sort of approach is a better business model in the long run than scolding customers because it creates good chances for repeat business while fine tuning our food to the customer's liking and also hopefully making the customer aware of their own sloth. see no reason why a buffet can't do that.

sadly the atkins diet has, in the space of a year, doubled the amount of wasted food we see. starches are routinely and regulary thrown away without warning by clients who simply didn't speak up in the first place. vanity!

ultimately, in my experience a weekday lunch is often the time when most food is wasted. why? because people wearing suits have come to my restaurant for what's most important on the table: not the food, but their own business. it's a shame.

by the way, there's a restaurant nearby which composts all unfinished food. maybe somewhat better than simply throwing it in the can.

[dankphishin]

I agree with most everyone here. While I do tend to get my money's worth at a buffet (especially one with sushi), I EAT all I take. When I was a busboy back in the day, I admit to getting peeved when I saw all the food that was left on a plate, because I think of all the people that have much, much, much less than what do we have. Sometimes, engaged in conversation about where to find the best food, etc. my mind is overcome with the fact that a huge percentage has to worry about if they will have anything to eat that day at all.

But, back to buffets...........I love buffets, and think the owner was perfectly justified in what he did. When you're low on cash, a buffet is the poor college student's best friend. What those people were doing was wasteful and fucked up, plain and simple.

[Busboy]

You shouldn't load up on anything first time around. Put a small taste on your plate and use your fork. If it's good, take a little more. Come back for seconds.

Does anyone want to nominate me for Empress? Other items in my platform: everyone will have to smile at babies, and men will wear a tuxedo once a month. I'll furnish the tuxes, if elected.

I'll vote for you.

I already have a tuxedo. Can I have opera pumps instead?

[Mild Bill]

I do have issue with the Sushi places and the rice thing though. If they don't want you to create your own Sashimi, they should go ahead and put some out there.

Or, don't make the rice portion as big as a golfball!

I often adjust for proper balance, consequently leaving some rice on da plate...

[Pan]

It's nice to see such unanimity here. Yes, the owner was right and the customers were assholes. If they never come back, good riddance to them.

[tommy]

who is right?

is this a real question? or a springboard into some sort of discussion. it's obvious to me that people shouldn't waste food when they're able to control their own portion size. in fact, many buffets even have signs posted stating as much.

who's right? the customer i suppose.

[mags]

I'm with the majority here. I'm a business owner, and within certain VERY broad limits, I don't allow behavior in my store that either makes me unhappy or might, I believe, make other customers unhappy. I believe in being polite about it, but absolute. I don't allow people on roller blades to roll all over my carpet (happily this doesn't seem to be much of an issue anymore, since the blading craze has passed); I don't allow anything other than very brief and hushed cell-phone conversations, I've been known to tell more than one kid -- again, nicely but firmly -- to be quiet, stop swinging on the door, put the book down unless you want to read it, stop smacking your brother. While I've become much less of a martinet about open drinks -- sodas, cups of coffee, etc. -- I remain a stickler about ice cream cones and food in general; I'm really not interested in your getting your buttery croissant crumbs on my books, thanks.

I suppose this could cost me customers, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for an environment in which I and my many regular customers are comfortable. It's a damn shame that people have to be taught manners by restaurant-managers and shop-clerks, but we all have to put up with far too much rudeness as it is; I'll be damned if I'm going to let it invade the tiny space over which I hold sway.

[Monica Bhide]

who is right? 

is this a real question? or a springboard into some sort of discussion. it's obvious to me that people shouldn't waste food when they're able to control their own portion size. in fact, many buffets even have signs posted stating as much.

who's right? the customer i suppose.

It wasnt a real question.. it was a loaded one!

Let me play devil's advocate here.. what would the reaction have been if I had said the owner was really rude and lectured the guys on wasting their food

[JPW]

Let me play devil's advocate here.. what would the reaction have been if I had said the owner was really rude and lectured the guys on wasting their food

Fine by me.

If I had been in the restaurant, I would have paid extra to see that!

Behavior that far out of line by adults who SHOULD know better deserves a smack-down. It's not like the owner should be worried about losing the business of these little ventworm nuts.

[Lady T]

It's nice to see such unanimity here. Yes, the owner was right and the customers were assholes. If they never come back, good riddance to them.

Well...yes, actually. I might not put it that forcefully, but that's certainly the gist.

What gets me is that I can't quite comprehend why this bunch of twits is doing this. I'm accustomed to seeing adolescent males consume everything on a buffet table that doesn't actively try to escape; that's not what this is. I understand that students on inhumanly tight budgets might want to take away an extra plate with them after they'd eaten their fill (and if I were the owner, and a student approached me discreetly and politely about it, I might even allow it, now and then) -- but that's not what's happening here either. This is careless and wasteful and rude as all hell, and I plain don't get it.

[Monica Bhide]

I dont think these guys were hard up for money.. well I dont know that for a fact.. but they were well dressed in nice suits and in the heart of downtown DC.. which tells me that they were probably employed.. so they had a paycheck. I was really annoyed at their behavior. Its pathetic and then to give the owner a hard time... I guess it takes all kinds

[phaelon56]

It was intentionally rude behavior, sounds as if it was done on a dare and IMHO the owner was competely and totally justified in telling them his feligns and his unwritten policy. I'm reminded of the old Hill Street Blues TV show episode where the polcie are called in to an "All You Can Eat" buffet restaurant. An enormous man has been there all day and has positoned his dining chair (all the chairs had casters) in such a way that he just rolls up and down the buffet line, eating as he goes. The irate owner has decided thatvafter six or seven hours it's enough but is advised that his posted policy doesn't prohibit this. Certainly not an exact corollary to this situation but I think this owner now needs to post a policy for idiots like these guys.

Can't seem to find the quote to paste it in but someone, I think it was tana, mentioend how PC Seattle is. Tell me about it - they wait for the light to change before crossing thte street - even when there are no cars coming for as far as one can see in either direction (it sure ain't NYC!).

About the tuxes - I'd gladly wear one once a month and will happily buy it myself if I only had the occasions where it was suitable.

[mags]

It was intentionally rude behavior, sounds as if it was done on a  dare

I think you lead a sheltered life -- sheltered, at least, from the kind of spectacularly boorish arrogance that can be produced by the combination of 26-year-old male + ridiculously inflated salary + aggressively hierarchical corporate ethos that constantly promotes the message that one is either a "player" (i.e., somebody who "matters," and thus whose every whim shall be indulged) or pond scum. The financial industry is particularly gifted at putting together this combination of factors, though large white-shoe law firms also field a strong team. The arrogance tends to be particularly unpleasant in the case of young men, because within the context of their offices, it is they who are the pond scum, regularly peed on by (and required to indulge the whims of) the real "players," who are typically at least 10 years older, with even more inflated incomes. In the time honored way of things, the young men then go looking for people that they themselves can pee on.

It's not a pretty sight.

Editing for spilling

Edited April 22, 2004 by mags (log)

[sequim]

Can't seem to find the quote to paste it in but someone, I think it was tana, mentioend how PC Seattle is. Tell me about it - they wait for the light to change before crossing thte street - even when there are no cars coming for as far as one can see in either direction (it sure ain't NYC!).

HA HA, yes that's the extreme of politeness, to the point of absurdity. This has bugged me ever since coming to live in Seattle. I blatantly cross the street and look at the standing people/sheep in the eye to look at their reaction to me "breaking the law" hee.

[tommy]

excellent, mags.

[Cynthia G]

Shoot. Now I don't know whether I want Tana or Mags to be In Charge!

[phaelon56]

I think you lead a sheltered life -- sheltered, at least, from the kind of spectacularly boorish arrogance that can be produced by the combination of 26-year-old mane + ridiculously inflated salary + aggressively hierarchical corporate ethos that constantly promotes the message that one is either a "player" (i.e., somebody who "matters," and thus whose every whim shall be indulged) or pond scum. The financial industry is particularly gifted at putting together this combination of factors,

Not especially sheltered but I've learned who to avoid

I recall reading a book about Wall Street frivolities in which this particular species was described as "Big Swinging Dicks". And... there was a constant competition to see who was the Biggest Dick (not who had one - just who was one by virtue of their arrogance and self-possessed grandiosity).

You have just clarified for me why I intuitively avoided certain places when I lived in the NYC area.

[tanabutler]

Shoot. Now I don't know whether I want Tana or Mags to be In Charge!

Tag team!

[mags]

I recall reading a book about Wall Street frivolities in which this particular species was described as "Big Swinging Dicks". And... there was a constant competition to see who was the Biggest Dick (not who had one - just who was one by virtue of their arrogance and self-possessed grandiosity).

Gotta love Michael Lewis. The book is "Liar's Poker" -- a classic of the horrors-of-Wall-Street genre that incidentally provides a window onto the hideous food-consumption habits of bond traders. Remember the "how many cheeseburgers can you charge to the company and then stuff into your mouth in 15 seconds" contests?

Owen, you may have put your finger on the identity of Monica's repulsive crew!

I know all too many Street bozos, but had my last working experience there in the early 90s. I had just returned from a month in China, and found one of the aforementioned 26-year-old males (think of him as a Little Swinging Dick with a Gro-Light) packing a carry-on bag full of peanut-butter crackers and cans of tuna. I asked him, umm, what he was doing, and he told me that he was about to go to China to watch the launch of a satellite owned by a company he was researching. The conversation went like this:

Me: Ok, but....what's with the peanut butter crackers?

Him: You don't think I'm going to EAT that shit they have there, do you?

Me: Ummm....actually, the food is pretty goo.....well, you're planning to eat nothing but tunafish and peanut-butter crackers?

Him: There are Snickers bars in the outside pocket.

Me: Hunh. You really think you can pack enough candy bars and crackers for an entire trip to China?

Him: I'm only going to be gone overnight.

Me: You're.....you're going to China as a DAY TRIP?

Him: Correct. I fly to Beijing -- and I'll eat the stuff on the plane. Then I take a train to Wuxi [or whatever the hell city it was], I watch the satellite go up, take the train back to Beijing, and get back on a plane.

Me: (after long pause): Michael....you're literally going to the other side of the world. You don't want to, you know, take a couple of days to look around? See the Forbidden City maybe?

Him: Why would I want to do that? Besides, I have a squash game on Friday. I'm going to beat the shit out of Feldenstein. He's totally gonna be my bitch.

[tanabutler]

Me: Ummm....actually, the food is pretty goo.....

You shouldn't have told him it was goo.

[mongo_jones]

and yet boorishness is not restricted to americans or even wall-street types. the average north-indian man could give all the villains on this thread a run for their money.

[Lady T]

How so, Mongo? More important: why so?

[lala]

Can't seem to find the quote to paste it in but someone, I think it was tana, mentioend how PC Seattle is. Tell me about it - they wait for the light to change before crossing thte street - even when there are no cars coming for as far as one can see in either direction (it sure ain't NYC!).

HA HA, yes that's the extreme of politeness, to the point of absurdity. This has bugged me ever since coming to live in Seattle. I blatantly cross the street and look at the standing people/sheep in the eye to look at their reaction to me "breaking the law" hee.

That was me

It's not necessarily a sheep mentality...the Jaywalking/crossing against the light fine in Seattle is about $80.00, and the police are very gungho about enforcing this (must be easier to catch a jaywalker than a drug dealer, right?) If you're in a neighborhood, you can usually get away with it, but downtown, you can get nabbed by a cop hiding around the corner.

And we all say "please" and "thank you", and carry our furled brolleys everywhere, because it ALWAYS rains here. (She said, schmering on more sunscreen before she goes for her walk in the blissful 65* sunshine.)

Cynthia G:

"Shoot. Now I don't know whether I want Tana or Mags to be In Charge!"

And nobody is in charge here in Seattle. But that's another thread...

[Cynthia G]

Lala, I think if Tana and/or Mags wanted to be In Charge In Seattle, they could easily pull it off!

Loved the Tag Team image, Tana! I would love to have seen you two handling these restaurant guys.

I always wish I had no fear of public conflict and could confront boorish people like this when offended, but I usually don't.