LAS VEGAS — Eighty years ago, the first Las Vegas buffet opened with the $1 western-themed Buckaroo Buffet that offered cold cuts and cheese. Today, visitors can drop $175 on luxury buffets with lobster tail, prime rib and limitless drinks.

The old Las Vegas buffets didn’t make much money, but they allowed people to eat cheaply and quickly, giving them more time to spend their money on the casino floor.

But the number of buffets has dwindled to around a dozen on the Las Vegas Strip. Many shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic and elected not to reopen with rising prices.

Before the Carnival World Buffet at the Rio closed in 2020 and was replaced with the Canteen Food Hall, it touted itself as Las Vegas’ largest buffet with over 300 international dishes to choose from. It had just about everything you could eat for around $30, said Jim Higgins, a Las Vegas food tour guide.

ARIA’s buffet, which stood out in its offering of Indian dishes and fresh-baked naan, also closed for good in 2020 and reopened as the Proper Eats Food Hall. The food hall offers several options, including ramen, sushi and burgers. Last March, the pyramid-shaped Luxor’s ancient Egypt-themed buffet closed. It had cost around $32, but many people ate for free with a casino comp.

Many of the city's old-school buffets have been replaced by trendy food halls and pricey celebrity chef-driven restaurants — and the so-called luxury buffet, making it now an attraction in and of itself. The rise of Las Vegas as a foodie town drove demands for higher quality dining, said Al Mancini, a longtime food journalist in Las Vegas and the creator of a food guide called Neonfest.

Longtime Las Vegas visitors liken the decline of buffets to the disappearance of the 99-cent shrimp cocktail, another iconic offering that had contributed to the city’s reputation as an affordable vacation spot.

“You wander in, you eat, you stuff your face, and then you stumble on out to a slot machine. It’s just part of the culture, and it’s sad to see that change,” Arizona resident and frequent Las Vegas visitor Ryan Bohac said.

History professor and Las Vegas native Michael Green remembers the days of the $1.99 buffet, where he’d pile his plate with fried chicken, corn and desserts. An advertisement for the Old West-themed casino Silver Slipper’s buffet painted that picture of plenty with the line “Tomorrow the diet, today the great buffet."

The Las Vegas icon

Las Vegas is a city where visitors like to pretend they have more money than they do, and buffets allow people to live like a king, giving them a “visceral thrill” when loading up a plate with crab legs, Mancini said.

Jeff Gordon, a frequent Las Vegas visitor from California, likes the “grand spectacle” of the high-end buffets like the Wynn’s buffet or the Bacchanal at Caesars Palace, which display mountains of crab legs and elaborate carving stations with prime rib and smoked brisket.

Still, Gordon misses the affordable buffets that were once plentiful.

“It’s like going to Costco and buying a $1.50 hot dog,” Gordon said. “You may not just buy that $1.50 hot dog, but you may be spending like $150 in Costco and other things that maybe you do need, maybe you don’t need.”

He thinks the decline in affordable buffets has contributed to the city’s growing reputation as becoming too expensive. Gordon thinks it’s hurting tourism as a whole, and discouraging middle-class Americans from visiting.

Locals say buffets have adapted to meet the needs of a city that is constantly changing.

“It was a great option in its day,” said Jim Higgins, a Las Vegas food tour guide. “I think the city has just moved on.”

A luxury experience

“A Las Vegas buffet is an attraction at this point, and you’re going to pay for an attraction,” he said. “You’re not going there to get deals.”

At the Palms' A.Y.C.E Buffet, visitors can pay $80 for endless lobster, shrimp cocktail, sushi, snow crab legs and fresh pasta like lobster mac 'n' cheese. They offer specialty themed nights where hula dancers or mariachi perform. Occasionally a lobster mascot walks around.

It’s almost like a circus, said Marcus O’Brien, the executive chef at Palms Casino Resort.

Mancini said buffets will always be part of some visitors’ Las Vegas experience, and they’ll evolve alongside the restaurant scene around them in order to succeed.

“The Las Vegas buffet will never die,” he said.

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