High End 'Canteen' Style setups
 

I have always wondered why there isn't more of these setups

IF you have a place with great food, instead of having food made to order, you have heaps of food just freshly cooked in bulk and people go down the line and choose what they want on their plate (not necessarily self serve) and then pay at the end

Food would be high quality and fresh but customers would not have to wait anywhere near as long if the set up was efficient. Then you go sit where you can find a seat.

The key is having enough regular customers than the food turnover is high and food isn't sitting around for long. More people you get, more variety of food you could offer

I love these kind of setups because i love mixing my food.

Isn't this called a buffet?

There are some high end buffet restaurants around. Any of the Gaylord hotels have one and they're excellent, if a bit pricy.

No the difference with a buffet is you can go up and keep re filling your plate


With what i am thinking of is you pay by the plate, just like school, you can't keep going up and getting as much food as you want at school

So i am thinking of food better than buffet food

Basically if a restaurant has 15 dishes on the menu which is about right for a good restaurant, they have large amounts of all of their 15 dishes for customers to choose from

Like the plate by weight concept in Brazil? Just fill up your plate and pay per oz?

Many hospitals already do that and would welcome your business. I eat at some hospital or another at least 2 days a week and I have little to complain about in terms of quality.

Grocery stores also do that. I would often go to Wegmans and get my fill of Chinese food and head back home to eat it.

Not all buffets are 'all you can eat'.

I'd far rather have food cooked to order - if a restaurant has to cook 15 dishes en masse, they are going to be put out and held hot for a length of time - if you make one dish to order, it is brought straight out to you. Quality suffers somewhat.

Also, if the restaurant has to cook 15 dishes in large enough quantities to feed the stream of people, there is going to be a lot more waste (serving 15 dishes, a good buffet style will use more food than a la carte). Thus, either prices would be higher than a la carte, or quality would be worse.

OP may enjoy this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/luxur...s-resorts.html

They are called cafeterias in the US. Many years ago there was an outstanding one in Texas called Lubys. Very good food made on site. Each store manager was responsible for getting locally purchased ingredients and making the dishes on site. There was a real home cooked air to the place. No idea what they are like now. I hope they are the same.

Unfortunately, most places figure they can save a few bucks by making the food in a central place and shipping it and such and as a result it pretty quickly spirals to crap. Some local places remain, been to a few but I suspect they are rare.

If you like soup and salad (with a bit of pasta and a dessert or two) there's Souplantation.

You mean like many fast food joints (Sbarro, Boston Chicken, Etc.)? The problem with that style is really in keeping the food up to quality. Unless you have constant, steady, turnover, you really have a lot of food just sitting around. For somethings this is not a problem, but for many dishes they get dry or start to go limp.

It's quite popular in many cities for lunch spots, I would dare say in fact most lunch restaurants are like that. Less so for dinner, where people like to sit down. on the other hand, I think a lot of stuff is prepared like that behind the scenes anyways.

Furr's also used to be quite popular back in the 70's, which is coincidentally probably the last time I ate there. Have no idea if they're around still or not.

I practically lived at the Souplantation in Mission Valley during college many, many years ago.

Furr's is alive and well in Texas. Absolutely awful at least for breakfast/brunch. The one I ate at was brand new.

Furr's quality varies with location. Furr's has 2 locations in Lubbock, and one is excellent, the other merely good. They no longer do breakfast here. The times I've eaten at Furr's in Plainview, I've always wished I hadn't. We had a Luby's and it failed miserably - the food was very sub-par. OTOH, I've eaten at a Luby's in Corpus Christi and it was very good.

Higher end boutique type cafes are popping up and very popular around major NA centres.. I guess the environment would comprise of up to date renos, interior decorated designed.. definitely the niche for the present and near future..

Perhaps a better word than cafe can be used..