The best free breakfasts are correlated to by location, not by chain.

A number of chains have fantastic free breakfast buffets in Scandinavia (because that's the standard there), but the same chains here in the USA will have either rather mediocre/wimpy free breakfast most of the time, or else only paid restaurant breakfast in the USA.

And then there's chains like Best Western Plus where it varies from one property to the next, sometimes tremendously. The Best Western Plus Bryce Canyon Grand Hotel outside the entrance to Bryce Canyon National park has a buffet* that's free-to-all yet resembles what you'd expect at a paid buffet in a an average "full service" hotel (Hilton brand, Marriott brand, Crowne Plaza in the IHG family, etc). But that's only that specific hotel; I've not yet run into another Best Western Plus in the USA with anywhere near as nice a free breakfast for all as the Best Western Plus Bryce Canyon Grand Hotel. (In fact, the Best Western Plus Ruby's Inn across the road has a pathetic breakfast buffet and it isn't even free!)


The best free-to-all breakfast by chain are probably those at all-suites-with-breakfast brands, such as Embassy Suites (Hitlon family), StayBridge Suites (IHG family), Residence Inn (Marriott family), etc. But even those are not as good as the typical Scandinavian breakfast or the buffet at Best Western Plus Bryce Canyon Grand Hotel.

At the not-all-suites brands, the breakfast tends to be a step lower, and not that different between Hampton (Hilton family) and Fairfield (Marriott family), though a bit less variety at Holiday Inn Express (IHG family) compared to those two.


* To see a picture of that buffet, go to http://book.bestwestern.com/bestwest...ertyCode=45082, and to the right of the picture of the hotel you'll see a scroll bar. Scroll to about the middle and you'll find 5 pictures of the "Breakfast Area", the first 3 of which are views of different parts of the buffet.