there used to be a Duff's about five minutes away from where i grew up. it has since been turned into an Office Max or something but this should give you a good mental picture of the type of space we're working with. i couldn't have been more than eight when we went there - on Sundays, post-church hunger setting in - but the memory is as clear as yesterday.
so it's a buffet with dark green carpet and white walls. there was a fair amount of brass and fake plants and your typical restaurant low lighting.
they had a salad bar with a mound of glistening jell-o and a canister of cottage cheese at the end. but here's the kicker... the entrees were on a conveyor belt that rotated around out into the buffet area, then through a 2 x 2 foot hole and back behind the wall (and of course then back out again)! yeah, sort of like the baggage claim, only there was a wall, and it was food!now if you think bout it, the conveyor belt idea is actually a very good one and complements the buffet idea quite nicely. the conveyor belt offers customers more convenient buffeting. no longer do you have to take as many steps to fill up your plate. once positioned at the conveyor belt, the food slowly and pleasantly passes you by
(unless you're eight and then the mashed potatoes carry you away with them as you grasp the serving spoon). but i digress. besides, if you happened to miss the green bean casserole because you were staring down the 'homemeade' mac n' cheese, just hold tight little buddy... it's comin' around again! the other good thing about rotating entrees is that the customer never has to see the process of or the person who is freshening/refilling the stainless steel bin of fried chicken parts because it's all done behind the wall! voila... more gravy-smothered breaded steaks!
perhaps you are now thinking what i am thinking. sure the conveyor belt provides a sense of leisure, maybe even privacy to the happy buffeting customer, but it also creates a mysterious black box effect. what, exactly goes on behind that wall? who, exactly is freshening my creamed corn and what if they're not wearing a hair net? all of a sudden this lazy river of entrees is like Area 51. fortunately there's the soft serve machine. true, it too has a black box effect but somehow there's less risk involved. plus, aren't rainbow jimmies like antibiotics?after all is said and done i probably only smorgasborded at Duff's a total of seven times... and then Duff's went away. every now and then i get a twinge in my right side when i think about Duff's. i'm not sure if it's a twinge of fondness or my I.B.S. but it's good to know that you can't even find the place west of the Great Plains. if only that were the case with Golden Coral.
2 comments:
Oh my gosh, when I was in D.C. they had this buffet I went to called Horn & Horn Smorgasbord. They had they conveyer belt system, and it totally disturbed me. What is going on behind that wall? And is it really that hard to walk to the next dish. We were like horses feeding at the trough.
Man, cheese, it's at times like these that I am so glad I was either too small to remember this or perhaps that I didn't even exist at the time. And it's not just the pictures of who-knows-what in some sort of metal dish thing (let us not remember my summer days over the "steam table" at cafe sole... and all that with a college education!!) but add that to the fact that it's all rotating in it's room temperature, air born diseased glory. Mmmmm, rotating overcooked and mushy carrots are better than the stationary variety, mmmmm...
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