18 Slightly Irritating Aspects of Dining at Buffets

Buffets are a popular dining option. They allow you to enjoy a wider variety of items than you could if you ordered a standard entree with two sides from a restaurant. And, of course, because they’re all-you-can-eat, you don’t need to worry about tiny portion sizes that leave you wanting to order another full meal. Of course, all buffets are not created equally. Your experiences at one of the best luxury buffets in the U.S. are going to vary widely from those at a hole-in-the-wall buffet that only costs a few bucks per person.

However, while every buffet is unique, there are some mildly annoying things that apply to dining at most of these establishments. Just to be clear, we’re not talking about the glaring red flags at some buffets that should make you turn around before even sitting down, such as a poor health department rating or dirty and sticky tables. Instead, we’re talking about those more minor inconveniences that aren’t enough to push you to choose a full-serve restaurant, but that you have to learn to work around to make the most of your experience.

If you’re like many, then one of the things you enjoy about going out to eat is the service. It’s nice to get a break from not only cooking the meal, but also bringing it to the table for you (and often others as well). One mildly annoying thing about buffets is that you still have to serve yourself. Of course, this is part of the deal with a buffet — otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to customize your plate just how you like it, but it is still annoying.

Moreover, you’re often not seated right next to the buffet. So, the walk back to the table with your food often takes a lot longer than it would be to go from your own kitchen to the dining room table.

Eating at a buffet is often a longer experience than dining in a restaurant. Even though you don’t have to wait for your food to be cooked in the kitchen and brought out to your table, the process of going up to the buffet line, selecting which items you want, adding them to your plate, coming back to eat, and doing it all again (or several times) definitely extends the meal time.

When you add long lines to the mix, the time to finish the meal can increase significantly. If you’re dining at a popular buffet or during a rush period, those long lines can be maddening. Even some “large” buffets that have several rooms full of seating still only have one main serving line. Those long lines can detract you from going back up as many times as you want, and could prevent you from getting your money’s worth.

Another slightly frustrating thing about eating at many buffets is the temperature of the food. While most buffets use warming dishes to prevent roasted veggies, sliced meat, pasta, and other “hot” foods from getting cold, they’re only so effective. Unless you have perfect timing and the pan of food just came out of the kitchen, it is likely to be lukewarm, at best, by the time you get back to your table and are ready to start eating it.

Large food pans can be a red flag at a buffet. The larger the pan, the more it holds. So, unless the buffet is really hopping, it is likely that food will remain in it for longer, increasing the odds that it won’t still be hot for you to enjoy. If food sits around for too long, it could be more than just cold when you get back to your table. After two hours, the chance of foodborne illnesses will be greater as more and more bacteria have the chance to grow.

We’ve already discussed the frustration of having to serve yourself and wait in a long line to choose the food you want to eat. Some of us, however, are not so lucky to only have to worry about filling one plate. If you’re eating with young children or someone with limited mobility, the responsibility of filling multiple plates may fall on you.

This can be very inconvenient at a buffet. You either need to juggle more than one plate and try to fill them up as you walk down the buffet line. This can be difficult if there isn’t sufficient counter space to put the plates down to use the serving utensils. Plus, you run the risk of annoying those behind you for taking too long. The alternative isn’t any less annoying, either. You could only fill one plate at a time, bring it back to the table, and return to fill the next. However, if you do this, when are you supposed to have any time to eat your food? By the time you’ve returned from your second (or third) time through the line, the first person you served may be ready for seconds.

Have you ever had this happen when dining at a buffet? You walk up to the line, and you see a particular entree or side dish that looks absolutely incredible. Perhaps, it’s a fresh pan of mac and cheese, or maybe it’s a platter of BBQ ribs. Either way, because it looks so good, you help yourself to a generous portion (you are at an all-you-can-eat buffet, after all).

However, once you get back to your seat and start digging in, you realize the error in your ways. What looked so delicious actually tastes like cardboard or has a seasoning that simply doesn’t agree with your taste buds. This leaves you in a very aggravating position. Not only are you going to have a lot of uneaten food on your plate, but that food also took up space that, in hindsight, you should have filled with something else.

Do you know what else can be irksome when you’re eating at a buffet? Running out of space on your plate. On your first pass, you might want to try a little of everything to see what you want to get more of the next time you come up to the line. However, when you don’t have space on your plate, that isn’t going to be possible.

You also can’t always scoop one item right next to another. Some sauces and seasonings don’t mix. You don’t want the juice from the pickled hard-boiled egg leaking onto your fried shrimp. This can make it even more difficult to get a taste of everything you want to try.

Have you ever watched the person in front of you in line use the serving spoon from the spaghetti for the orange chicken sitting right next to it? Do you cringe a little every time you see such disregard for mixing flavors that most people probably don’t want combined? If so, you’re not alone; this cross-contamination is certainly annoying. You also don’t always see it in action, but it is always a possibility to be aware of.

Finding a stray piece of pasta mixed in with your chicken is irritating. However, for some people, it can be much more than a simple annoyance. If you have a severe allergy or food intolerance, cross-contamination can possibly make you sick or even put you into anaphylaxis. Everyone should consider food safety before hitting up a buffet, but it is even more crucial for some people.

Buffets often aren’t cheap. When you leave feeling satisfied and like you had a gourmet meal, the pricey experience can feel well worth it. However, this isn’t always how you feel when you leave a buffet.

If you walk out disappointed in the quality of the food (or the selection) and feel that you could have gotten a better meal, for less money, at a sit-down restaurant, it’s certainly annoying. Unfortunately, by this point, the damage has been done. You’ve already paid for one meal, so you likely can’t justify paying for a second.

Overeating at a buffet is too easy. While it is good to find a large selection of items that taste good, sometimes you go a bit too far and don’t realize it until it’s too late.

Walking out of the buffet with an overly full belly is never fun. Whether you have plans for after the meal or know the restaurant needs the table for the next group, sitting to digest isn’t always possible. If you have to walk by the buffet line (and all those pans of food), that can push your already full stomach over the edge.

One other potential downside of choosing a buffet is that they’re often not the most serene environments. With everyone getting up and down to refill their plates, people standing in line talking, and children potentially running all around, a buffet can be a pretty noisy place.

While this noise isn’t a deal breaker for most of us, it can be annoying if you’ve had a long day at work or are looking to have a meaningful conversation with a partner or friends who are dining with you. If you have children and somehow manage to set up a kid-free date night, it may also be frustrating to feel that all those loud noises are following you wherever you go, even when it’s not your own children making them.

Has this ever happened to you when dining at a buffet? You’ve waited in the line to get a second (or third — let’s be honest) helping of something you really enjoyed. However, once you get up to the correct spot in the line, the pan is empty. Annoying, right?

Waiting for someone to refill it is less than ideal. You have no idea when the new pan full of food is going to show up. So, do you stand around waiting for who knows how long? Do you return to your seat and try to come back up in a few minutes, knowing that it is possible that the pan still may be empty (or even has become empty again after being refilled)? It’s really a conundrum for which there’s no perfect solution.

One of the biggest draws of a buffet is the ability to eat as much as you would like. So why do some buffets only offer tiny bowls and plates? It’s almost as if they don’t want to make it easy for you to get all the food that you’re there for.

Small plates don’t hold a lot, so you’re forced to get back in line several times to try new items or get more of something you really enjoyed. Plus, if you’re someone who really doesn’t like different food items to touch, small plates can make it nearly impossible to try more than three or four items at a time. One tip that can help you best navigate a buffet that only offers small plates is to walk around and scout things out before filling your plate. This will help you prioritize what you want and make sure that you don’t miss something you really want to try after your plate is already full.

Let’s not forget that most buffets offer more than just the main course. Many also have a few — or even several — dessert offerings. However, what can get downright aggravating is how tiny the slices are. Have you ever been to a buffet where the pieces of cake are no more than a 1.5-inch square?

Again, if you’re at a buffet and your goal is to have a memorable and filling meal that helps you get your money’s worth, do you want a minuscule piece of dessert? Sure, it’s an all-you-can-eat restaurant, so you could take multiple pieces of dessert, but that has its downsides, too. First, the dessert at a buffet is often already plated. So, if you want to bring more than one piece back to your table, you’ll need to juggle multiple plates. And, that brings us to our next problem — do you really want people watching you carry four pieces of cake back to your seat? Wouldn’t it be easier if they could just have normal-sized pieces of cakes and brownies so you wouldn’t have to face either of these problems?

At a buffet, the expectation is certainly not that everyone will clear their plate. When dining at a sit-down restaurant, if you don’t like what you order, you’re sort of out of luck. You can either eat it or leave it, but you won’t be able to get more food. When dining at a buffet, on the other hand, if you don’t like something, you can simply leave the plate and go get something else to try.

While this is part of the appeal of a buffet, it can also be disheartening to see how much food goes to waste. Watching waiters grab half-full plates of food not only from the people at your table, but from all the other tables in the restaurant, really makes you wonder. Just how much is ending up in the trash? How many hungry people could have been fed from all that extra food?

Some buffets offer an omelet station or a carving station. Going to one of these buffets can always be a bit more exciting because they give you the opportunity to enjoy some customizations, such as choosing which fillings you want for the omelet that will be made right in front of you or getting your pick of rare, medium-rare, or medium roast beef.

However, while these stations can enhance the experience of eating at the buffet, they can also cause some trouble. Often, there are only one or two staff members working at each station. That means that you may have to wait quite some time for it to be your turn to customize an omelet precisely to your liking. Any time spent waiting is time spent not eating, which may interfere with your buffet plans.

There are several mistakes people can make when eating at a buffet. If you’re well-versed in buffet etiquette, then it can be really irksome when others around you are not so well informed.

Getting stuck behind someone in line who is taking too long to decide what they want or scoop the food onto their plate, seeing someone bring their dirty plate back up for seconds, or almost bumping into someone who is going the wrong way can put a real damper on the whole experience.

Unless you go to one of the best seafood buffets in the U.S., you shouldn’t expect the shrimp, scallops, fish, and other items to be cooked to absolute perfection. When these items are placed into the warming trays, they will continue cooking. If they cook for too long, the proteins may denature too much, resulting in that annoying rubbery texture.

Similarly, placing cooked meat into a warming tray can also have some negative effects on its taste or texture. The meat will also continue cooking. The steak that started at medium rare could be well-done by the time you get to it.

Have you noticed a difference in how and what you eat when you’re at a buffet. If you find yourself eating more carbs or higher sodium foods that you would at home or when ordering from a set menu at a restaurant, then you might be guilty of hedonic eating.

Hedonic eating, which is where an individual doesn’t eat solely to fill their hunger needs, but to get a “reward” from the available foods, is something that is more likely at a buffet. With all of the available options, it is easy to focus less on your hunger cues and more on eating anything that sounds good. If you only dine at buffets occasionally, this likely isn’t going to be anything more than a minor annoyance. However, if you regularly hit up buffets, you’ll want to take steps to curb these desires so that your health isn’t negatively affected.