[ElleTea]

Originally Posted by ohhboy

Vegas can be cheap if you dont eat @ casinos. I do it........................lol.


I gues $4 cokes are the norm. @ nellis area you can get them for 89 cents.

90% of the time when I am in Vegas I eat at casinos, and it is genreally cheap. So I don't know what you mean here.

When I said the days of really cheap buffets were gone, I was referrring to the idea that buffets are under $5 in Vegas.

[ElleTea]

Originally Posted by zxro

While it wasn't as impressive as the spread at say, Rio, the Main Street Station buffet downtown is pretty inexpensive, and has pretty decent food. I make it a point to eat there at least once every time I'm in town.

I really like the buffet at the Golden Nugget. Not too expensive if you don't go for Sunday brunch.

[gweilo845]

Originally Posted by Willy702

I am sure the planners are hatching up ways to take resort fees to other profit centers. Are we going to see a seating fee at restaurants? How about a cashier service fee when you gamble? They already figured out how to make money off the nicer pools, I suppose that could expand. It may never end and the worst part it is nickel and diming people. It would be one thing if you saw these everywhere, but how many other places are resort fees normal? Its a real risk because as much as its easy to take the mindset vacationers are willing to pay, it can also turn a lot of people off who you sold Vegas to as being a bargain destination.

Resort fees are pretty common across the board for hotels. Over the past year, I have stayed at hotels in Minneapolis, Florida, and Hawaii, and they all charged a resort fee. I think it is due to the rise of online booking sites. Hotels will take part of what would usually be included in a standard room but put it with the resort fee, so that the initial price will be lower and thus come up higher in search engine results.

The casinos aren't trying to pull in the low-level gamblers with cheap food/drinks anymore, at least for the most part. I've seen a couple of stories about how some newer strip bars are placing a "beverage service fee" (or something like that) on drinks, basically a extra 10%. So you are going to see that trend continue. Right now the big moneymakers are the clubs, where you have people paying $500-1000 for bottles of liquor, and that crowd isn't going to complain about extra fees because it's all trust fund money/credit cards anyway.

[BBMW]

That's the thinking on the strip (and it shows in the pricing.) I don't know if they can get away with that off the strip.

If they pump up pricing on their loss leader food offerings to make a profit on them, their locals clientele will go elsewhere, and they'll lose their casino business. If they cut the food quality to make them profitable, people will notice they've turned the end product to dog food, and not come (which has the same effect as raising prices.)

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

Think about these buffets for a moment -- they have to turn a profit. They're not allowed to operate as loss leaders for the casino. Those days are long gone, a memory that's just as dead as Spilotro. In order to turn a profit on an $8.50 buffet, something has to give somewhere.

[ScoopLV]

Originally Posted by BBMW

That's the thinking on the strip (and it shows in the pricing.) I don't know if they can get away with that off the strip.

If they pump up pricing on their loss leader food offerings to make a profit on them, their locals clientele will go elsewhere, and they'll lose their casino business. If they cut the food quality to make them profitable, people will notice they've turned the end product to dog food, and not come (which has the same effect as raising prices.)

Nobody has complained so far. There are plenty of people, even here on C-D, who freely admit that they really don't give a damn about food. As long as it's filling and cheap and keeps them going, they're good.

Casinos respond to that by using lowest-common-denominator foods. Fat and salt are cheap -- put enough of it in any dish and it will be good enough for the "food is fuel" crowd. Quantity over quality. That's our mantra.

[johninvegas]

Scoop,

While I agree with you that it's easy to end up gorging on crap food at buffets, you can also eat well if you watch what you eat.

For instance, the lunch I mentioned before included: a nice, fresh green salad, fresh steamed broccoli, sautéed carrots, two fried chicken wings, a small piece of chocolate cream pie and a glass of skim milk. All in all, not too bad for a meal and certainly not for under $10. I wasn't watching calories or I would have dumped the fried chicken for a slice of baked turkey and not had the pie.

[ScoopLV]

Originally Posted by johninvegas

While I agree with you that it's easy to end up gorging on crap food at buffets, you can also eat well if you watch what you eat.

For instance, the lunch I mentioned before included: a nice, fresh green salad, fresh steamed broccoli, sautéed carrots, two fried chicken wings, a small piece of chocolate cream pie and a glass of skim milk. All in all, not too bad for a meal and certainly not for under $10. I wasn't watching calories or I would have dumped the fried chicken for a slice of baked turkey and not had the pie.

That meal cost the buffet kitchen about $1.50 to make, including labor. The most expensive part of the meal was the salad, believe it or not. The carrots are usually "sautéed" in a combi oven right in the hotel pan. Buffet kitchens LIVE for steaming things -- there's a reason crab legs and steamed veg are so popular with buffets. Throw in a covered pan and forget it. And they have an in-house pastry department which cranks out pies, cakes and muffins all day, every day.

I don't hate buffets. In fact, I went to an AYCE sushi place this weekend (I owed a friend a meal and he picked AYCE sushi). You can get decent values at buffets -- but you have to pick the place and the items carefully. Many people will go to a breakfast buffet and get something dense, cheap and filling like pancakes -- not the best bang for the buck. (But I also understand the point of view of the diner who wants pancakes, coffee, OJ and some fruit -- and the breakfast buffet is actually less expensive than just ordering pancakes a'la carte at the 24-hour diner.)

The point to take away in this long-winded diatribe is that it is possible to eat healthy and still play right into the casino's hand. They need diners to make choices that aren't cost effective. In fact, they're counting on it.

[UTES]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

Quantity over quality.

Nailed.

Bill

[bayview6]

Steaming is the way to go. Go for fruits instead of pies, cakes and muffins. Get a couple of glasses of included wine. Make sure to get some prime rib and some freshly ground horseradish. Freshly baked pizza with caesar salad is also good, especially with those dark olives and Louisiana spicy rice. Oxtail soup is also good bet if you skip the high salt liquid.

You can always tell the quality of a buffet by the quality of the ice cream they serve.

[bayview6]

[quote of deleted post]

Sure, a lot of restaurants and buffets serve dog food. Don't eat there. But there are restaurants and buffets that provide quality food.

I agree that one should eat at home at least 60% of the time. For me, it used to be 95% of the time before I move to Vegas.