America's First-Ever All-You-Can-Eat Buffet Was Shockingly Affordable

Dining trends in the U.S. have come and gone, like fondue, the mid-century old-school dinner party trend that some believe we need to bring back. Others have enjoyed more staying power, like the all-you-can-eat (AYCE) buffet, which remains on the culinary landscape thanks to restaurants like the largest buffet in the States — Shady Maple Smorgasbord, though the buffet's popularity overall has decreased since the 1980s. Prices for AYCEs today run the gamut, from affordable options at the Golden Corral chain to higher-end eats like The Nordic, in Charlestown, Rhode Island, which can set you back over $500 for a group of four adults. But the first American AYCE buffet was shockingly low-priced for modern sensibilities at just $1 per person.

Let's set the scene: It was Las Vegas in the 1940s, and Herb McDonald worked for the hotel casino El Rancho Vegas. It was late at night, and he was hungry, so he rustled up some sandwich components from the kitchen and laid them out to assemble. This caught the attention of people walking by, to whom a sandwich also sounded like a great idea. Realizing he had hit upon a "eureka!" moment, McDonald eventually turned it into a full spread, and the hotel charged $1 for the good eats.

A dollar does sound pretty low by today's standards, but in the 1940s it was equivalent to a little under $25. Still, the hotel actually lost money on the buffet, though it made it back by keeping butts in casino seats.

In a fine example of things happening in Vegas but not staying in Vegas (let that be a warning to you), buffets eventually spread far and wide from the first at the El Rancho hotel and casino. To be sure, imitators of this specialty restaurant first populated the rest of the Las Vegas Strip, but by the following decade, AYCE buffets had sprung up all across the country, with Californians particularly embracing the trend in a variety of cuisines.

The standalone restaurants, without the benefit of an attached casino, instead took aim at large, post-war families and hungry solo travellers who might be in town for work, by offering a variety of high-quality, home-cooked food at fair prices. And to keep these buffet spreads sanitary, a man by the name of Johnny Garneau (famous in western Pennsylvania for his Smorgasbord restaurants) received a patent in 1959 for curved sneeze guards.

Of course, buffets reached their frenzy point in the 1980s, when nationwide chains like Sizzler, Shoney's, and Ponderosa wielded considerable influence over families who pondered that age-old, dreaded question: "What should we have for dinner tonight?" Even chains not typically known for AYCE dining, like Pizza Hut or McDonald's (which once offered up a breakfast buffet), threw their hats in the ring. In the next decade, the AYCE buffet trend would dwindle away, but in the 2020s, what once made them so popular — the low prices for a multitude of different dishes — is drawing in new crowds.