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Which ones in Long Island? Is it all Asian places? I have been to the Minado in Glen Cove Rd by Roosevelt Fields Mall.
Ones that I have patronized (by myself or with others) when out in Long Island include:
China Grand Buffet, 201 Airport Plaza Blvd, Farmingdale, NY (alongside Republic Airport on Route 110)
Islandia Buffet, 1704 Veterans Memorial Hwy, Islandia, NY 11749 (inside the Islandia Shopping Center) (Asian)
Good Taste Buffet, 200 Jericho Turnpike, Commack, NY 11725 (in the Mayfair Shopping Center)
Sunny Buffet, 72 E Main St, Bay Shore, NY 11706 (in downtown Bay Shore Village)
Many many others in Long Island, New York City, New Jersey, and Westchester County, and beyond came up when I typed "all-you-can-eat buffets in Long Island" in a Google search. If you typed "all-you-can-eat buffets in New York City" or in "Brooklyn" or "Queens" or "Bronx" or "Staten Island" or "Westchester" or "New Jersey" and so on in a Google search, you will find well more than we all imagined existed.
But we do have all you can eat buffets at Indian restaurants in Jackson Heights, Queens. And at some Brazilian restaurants in Corona.
Come to think of it some of the ethnic Chinese places in Flushing and Elmhurst are buffet style. So are some of the Dominican/Latin places in Brooklyn.
Even with gentrification huge parts of the city are heavily immigrant, and to find these buffets you'd need to be someone who's into just eating all sorts of food. I've eaten at many immigrant places that had buffets and I never got sick.
OK, but I didn't have the sense that this kind of very specific ethnic buffet is what the OP was talking about, although looking back, I see that's not indicated. Mea culpa.
My understanding was he was talking about these ginormous places like Old Country Buffet, the kind that are found throughout the south and the midwest.
I've only ever seen one American Chinese Food buffet in the the city. It was in LIC in a seedy neighborhood, right next to all the new car dealers on Northern Blvd.
Head west into NJ and PA and the only chinese restaurants you will ever find are these disgusting American Chinese Food buffets in lower end retail plazas.
And they are usually packed with lower middle class people (caucasion and black) who are overeaters.
I remember a few years back a friend dragged me to the Sizzler on Metropolitan Ave. in Forest Hills and it was gross and expensive. The food wasn't even edible.
I once made the mistake of going to a Golden Corral about 15 years ago while I was working in North Carolina, and again, the food was complete garbage.
I think in cities like NYC, San Francisco, Chicago you just have people who are more into culinary culture, more neurotic about what they eat, and in general you have more foodie culture. Buffet's in cities like this are almost always bound to fail because the quality of the food is so bad.
They have a Chinese buffet right on Cross Bay Blvd in Howard Beach. None of the locals eat there, but the ghetto folk from ENY and The Rockaways are attracted to the buffet like bee's to honey.
I don't think the economics of these places work in NYC. They need cheap rent They tend to be large operations, so a low cost per square foot is necessary.
They also need cheap food costs. The city purveyors are expensive, even for normal quality food. I got friendly with the manager of a diner in Manhattan I eat in fairly often. We got to discussing food costs. It turns out what they're paying wholesale delivered is more than I can buy from Costco.
So, ignoring the eating habits of New Yorkers (which likely doesn't support the AYCE model very well), the basic economics work against it.
I don't think the economics of these places work in NYC. They need cheap rent They tend to be large operations, so a low cost per square foot is necessary.
They also need cheap food costs. The city purveyors are expensive, even for normal quality food. I got friendly with the manager of a diner in Manhattan I eat in fairly often. We got to discussing food costs. It turns out what they're paying wholesale delivered is more than I can buy from Costco.
So, ignoring the eating habits of New Yorkers (which likely doesn't support the AYCE model very well), the basic economics work against it.
ehh I think the idea that New Yorkers tend to be super healthy eaters is bogus
I live pretty close to NYC and all you can eat buffets do very well, it isn't just fat people who go there
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