Do you mean a sort of deli section where stuff is scooped out for you and weighed? Every supermarket has those, but what’s unique in this one is the extensive self-serve hot buffet and equally extensive self-serve salad bar.
I imagine the hot buffet must be profitable for them or they wouldn’t be doing it as there’s quite a lot of manual labour involved in the prep and cleanup. Since it’s a flat price for everything, some of the items, like some of the more expensive seafoods, may not be all that profitable if some greedy type loads up on the expensive stuff.
I don’t do that – I just take adequate quantities of stuff I like, which, fortunately for the economics of the store, is often just some pasta dish. Though I do usually load it up with their sauteed mushrooms!
At mine, the hot food is served by an employee, but you can say, “I’d like that slice of roast turkey, and a little less than ¼ pound of the butternut squash, and…” There is an extensive cold buffet. Whole Foods does something similar, with a wall of hot options served by employees, but it’s cooked food ready to eat, and you can get whatever portion you want. I think the prices per pound are different for the different items, but it’s all priced by weight.
In most places the kids’ menu has some kiddie fair but also a few mini adult meals. The one place I frequent has steak bites and a mesquite chicken as kids’ options.
The one with lunch portions is a Mexican restaurant. It just has them for many of the entrees. It will have a lunch portion, a dinner portion, and sometimes a “for two” portion.
Most other places just have a separate lunch menu only available during certain hours. That’s why I look into the kids menu instead.
And they basically stopped checking for actual kids during COVID. I do tend to carry out rather than dine in, though.
I haven’t visited the hot food section recently at Whole Foods, but no, you paid the same “by-the-pound” rate for everything. So the $ per pound tended to be high, which deeply offended one of my friends.
“They’re robbing you on the potatoes! You’re paying {at the time} $9.99 a pound, but those cheesy mashed potatoes can’t be more than a 1/10th of that!”
He would then proceed to get some of them anyway, while I tended to load up on the chicken wings.
I don’t think I’ve been since Covid - but I doubt they have changed. Based on my local Kroger, they nixed 2/3 of the hot and cold dishes (including most of the olive bar) and the small remaining self-serve is still per pound total, rather than per object.
My local whole foods has an enormous olive bar. I mostly just buy the artichoke hearts and the stuffed grape leaves, and but my olives in convenient bottles. But there’s tons of stuff there, and it’s certainly all the same price per pound.
My local grocery store had something similar, before COVID. Lots of hot food options, a half-dozen soups, and a huge salad bar. It vanished entirely in 2020, and only re-emerged a couple of years ago, though the hot offerings, in particular, are much less than they used to be.
Just for fun, I looked up the online menu of the local Denny’s. As Denny’s does, there are photos of the menu items. I took particular interest in the menu for those 55+. If the photos are correct, the 55+ portions are smaller, and the price is smaller too.
Hm. I may have to visit Denny’s again. Not only could I finish my meal, but some of the selections look and sound downright tasty.
This. By the time you factor in the same overhead, same time to prep, serve, and clean up afterwards, same amount of gas/electric in cooking the meal: putting the same items on a customer’s plate, just smaller, is only going to save pennies.
I certainly have no objections to restaurants offering smaller portions for less money, but the customers wanting those smaller portions shouldn’t expect a very big drop in price.
Weirdly, cheaper hotels have more services. It used to be that cheap hotels had free phone service and expensive ones charged you through the nurse to use the phone. Not that everyone has cell phones, i don’t think that’s true any more. But it’s true about mini fridges and microwaves. I usually end up at the convention hotel, and I’ve yet to see a microwave. But the lower tier places have a usable fridge instead of a wildly overpriced “minibar”. Also, i think “resorts” may be more likely to have an oven? I mostly stay in cities, not resorts.
Fwiw, i travel a lot. This summer I’m going to a small town in Germany, Assisi, Montreal, and Minneapolis. The “gasthouse” in Germany will have neither a fridge nor a microwave, and tiny rooms, but will also feed us all our meals. I’m guessing the hotels in Assisi and Montreal will have a mini fridge, but either might have a mini bar instead. Minneapolis will likely have a fridge and might have a microwave, but it will be a surprise if it does. Earlier this year i went to a place in NH that served all our meals. It had a fridge in each suite, but no MW.
I don’t doubt your experience, but mine is different. (And based on staying in lots of hotels.)
Not sure if already mentioned here, but don’t most high-end restaurants already offer wimpy portions, like a steak just slightly larger than a table tennis ball, maybe three three-inch lengths of carrots, and maybe another three haricots, with some sauce splashed on? Those menus should just say “All Junior Meals ”.
Probably not, But that’s not me. I was one of those kids who had food wastage preached at me all the time. The fact that we were relatively poor when I was little was certainly part of it. It wasn’t just a waste of food, it was a waste of money.
I did like eating out with my brother when we were adults though. As soon as he saw me slowing down, he’d reach over and take my plate and finish my meal. Perfectly o.k. with me, and he knew it.
My experience does differ orthogonally but not diametrically. Although I haven’t been in enough upper-tier places to get a good sample size, the ones I have been in did indeed not have ovens and refrigerators.
In my experience what does make a place more likely to have those is if they are billed as “suites”. Both the lower and upper tiers are less likely to be billed as that, leaving that space to the mid and mid-upper tiers. Suites I’ve stayed at have always had a microwave and at least a mini fridge.
But again my experience does vary because a lot of people talk about a minibar instead of a mini fridge which I haven’t seen in decades, even the two places I’ve stayed at in Vegas. I am thankful that my experience does vary because I’m picky as to what refreshments I have even if I’m taking them for the chemicals, so I probably would not find anything worth taking from them at any price given their limited selection. For instance, they might have Red Bull but I’d only be interested in Sugar Free Red Bull. They might have a straight vodka but even if I were desperate to have alcohol I’d need a mixer and I’m not sure if they’d have OJ or not. And don’t even get me started on how much of a crapshoot mini bottles of wine can be.
Indeed many restaurants featuring haute cuisine are like that. You forgot to mention also that the sauce isn’t so much “splashed on” as squirted on in decorative swirls. And, as if to emphasize the paltry size of the servings, they’re usually served on extra-large plates, apparently an attempt to tease the customer about the tiny portions and even perhaps make it a challenge to find any food at all on the vast plain of white china!
But more down-to-earth mid-tier American restaurants do tend to bring more food than an ordinary human should be able to eat.
”.