Joseph Heller reportedly once said, "It's better to eat a large, mediocre meal than a small, good meal." And if he didn't say that, he should have — especially if he ever ate at a Hometown Buffet.
I did, yesterday. For reasons too boring to waste bandwidth on, I found myself lunching at one of them. For 7 and a half bucks, I had all I could eat of what would probably pass for adequate food in a high school cafeteria. And to be honest, I've had worst buffets in Las Vegas. It was better than the Imperial Palace but not as good as Harrah's; kind of like the Excalibur but without the tasteful decor.
Actually, what made my Hometown Buffet experience rather pleasant was not the food but one of the gents who busses tables and gets you mustard when you need it. He was a young black guy with a shaved head and he was awfully funny. As people carrying dishes of fried chicken and pizza walked past him on their way back to their tables, he would point as if they'd made a grievous error and say, "Hey, you need more food on that plate." (I saw one man, almost apologetically, go back and get more mashed potatoes in response.) The fellow was telling little old ladies they needed their parents there — that is, they looked too young to be admitted without parental supervision — and as people exited, he'd yell after them, "You're not giving up now!? There's chocolate pudding! There's brownies!"
At one point, he spotted my dish of baked whitefish and rice and told me I needed more food on my plate. I told him, "Don't worry. By the time I'm finished, this place will be bankrupt." With flawless comic timing, the guy did a perfect take and began running around to the other service folks yelling, "We have to go look for work! We're going out of business!"
It might not sound like much here…but folks who went to that Hometown Buffet were just expecting a lot of heavily-breaded entrees; they didn't figure on a floor show. If I owned a restaurant that served unspectacular meals, I'd try to find employees like that guy. Because of him, everyone there had a pretty good time. In spite of the food.