This US City Was Home To The First All-You-Can-Eat Buffets
Whether the restaurant you frequent keeps fried rice and lo mein or cornbread and fried chicken in its chafing dishes, all-you-can-eat buffets are a quintessential part of American culture. With sprawling tables of food more grand than any classic restaurant's endless meal deals, buffets are a pinnacle of excess that could only come from Las Vegas.
The practice of staying seated while being served a meal was turned on its head in 1946, and we have Herb McDonald to thank for that. As a publicist for El Rancho Vegas, one of the Strip's first hotels, McDonald spread cold cuts and cheeses out to make a sandwich, but wound up using the ingredients to feed hungry gamblers in what would be dubbed the Buckaroo Buffet. The first buffet in Las Vegas only cost a dollar, and guests were given 24-hour access to eat to their heart's content. The spread featured casual foods like salads, seafood dishes, cold cuts, and other items.
Although McDonald's buffet idea wasn't exactly a money-making scheme for El Rancho Vegas, the reliable 24-hour schedule brought in a steady flow of customers, and the all-you-can-eat premise rapidly spread to other Las Vegas hotels and casinos. The iconic hotel's restaurant is, unfortunately, now a shuttered Las Vegas buffet missed by many, but McDonald's innovative ideas live on all across Sin City and the rest of the country. From 1946 onward, Vegas hotels and casinos enticed guests with gambling and kept them satiated with endless food options.
The first buffet had more elegant origins
El Rancho Vegas' $1 spread looked a little more like the under $25 buffets you may find nationwide today, but the OG version was a little more refined. An endless spread of food definitely seems like an American invention, but the dining style stems from a 16th-century Swedish tradition.
The all-you-can-eat buffet's history began with the bränvinnsbord, a table featuring spirits, and then graduated to the smörgåsbord, a bread and butter table that includes meat, cheeses, fruits, and other delights. A traditional smörgåsbord is an orderly affair, with guests visiting the food table in a specific arrangement — a far cry from the mad dashes to fill up on freshly-placed crab legs and ribs before the other diners can get their fix.
Now, you'll find buffets for every taste and budget across the country, but Las Vegas remains unrivalled in its offerings. Sin City is still home to some of the largest buffets in the US, and it has eateries that pay homage to its opulent origins. With places like The Buffet at Wynn Las Vegas and Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar's Palace offering everything from an eggs Benedict station to a ceviche bar, the humble all-you-can-eat buffet has morphed into a grandiose experience that's fit for America's entertainment capital.