The Pizza Fan’s Guide to Buffets

Pizza buffets are very near and dear to my heart.  It all started with going to the Pizza Hut buffet with my parents as a child.  Ever since then, I have always treated going to a pizza buffet as a special event.  Due to the seriousness with which I take them, coupled with my previous experience, I believe I am qualified to offer some helpful tips when it comes to thoroughly enjoying pizza buffets.

Tip #1 Train your stomach
As lunch buffets are most common, I will refer to how best to train your stomach for one of those.  The point of training your stomach is to ensure you get to enjoy as much pizza as possible on the buffet and thus also get the most out of your money.  You want to be sure to be very hungry when going to the buffet, but it would be foolish to think that just eating a light breakfast is all you need to accomplish this.  The seasoned buffet veteran will start stretching out his or her stomach days ahead of time with fairly large meals.  Combining this with little or no breakfast on the morning of the buffet will guarantee that you have a large, empty stomach craving to be satisfied with pizza.

Tip #2Salads are for suckers
Do you enjoy starting out a pizza buffet with soup or salad?  Well you shouldn’t!  That would be similar to going to a sporting event just to see the halftime show.  These things are just fillers that nobody should really look forward to.  If you followed Tip #1, then you understand the importance of stomach space, and wasting it with salad wouldn’t make sense.  The restaurants want you to get full off of salad because it is the cheapest, but you need to get your money’s worth.  Feel free to have a salad the next day to make yourself feel better about gorging yourself with thirteen slices of pizza the day before.  But please don’t try to healthy-up a pizza buffet and take all of the fun out of it in the process.  A trip to a pizza buffet is a special occasion that should be enjoyed to its fullest, without salad!

Tip #3 Break out of the gates
Make sure to pile as much pizza onto your first plate as possible.  It is very important to get as much as possible in your stomach before you start to realize that you are full.  This means no slow starts (another argument against soup or salad).  It is also important not to take any breaks as this will only give your stomach time to send the signal to your brain that it is full.  You need to continue stuffing your stomach so that it is kept busy trying to break down all of that pizza and has no time to send signals of any sort (unless those signals are of impending vomit as that is an acceptable stopping point).

Tip #4Drink wisely
The smartest choice would probably be to only drink water.  However, I understand wanting to have a nice soda along with your pizza to get full enjoyment.  You just need to be careful not to fill up on it too much, as it is another cheap option that restaurants want to fill you up so you eat less of their pizza.

I hope these tips help you on your next buffet excursion.  If they do, I will accept an invite on your next trip as an adequate thank you.  Now get out there and enjoy a pizza buffet today, and feel free to let me know if you have any additional tips!

About Ryan Hays

My name is Ryan, and I am the creator of ThePizzaFan.com. I am in search of the greatest pizza in America, and I will take you along for the ride through this website. Please let me know your thoughts as I would be happy to hear your input.

Comments

  1. karen says:

    I totally agree with your buffet rules. You must have great parents that took you as a child. Maybe with you are in the area, we can do a buffet together.

  2. Buffet Betty says:

    Loved your tips, especially because they have some general applicability to other kinds of buffet as well. Here’s a tip of my own: Avoid the dessert pizza. It always looks intriguing but is usually either disappointing or even gross, and diverts your attention from real pizza. Others may disagree but I had dessert pizza with peppermint frosting that wrecked it for me, followed by a cross between a brownie and pizza that was terribly dry. I’ll be staying away from that end of the buffet.

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