Hotel buffets are frequently much cheaper to offer than cooked to order food. They can prepare the food en masse, rather than staffing the kitchen to cook for peak guest load in the dining room. And they don’t need nearly as much wait staff, either, since customers usually aren’t placing orders for very many things and the food doesn’t have to be run out to tables by employees. Yet somehow you’re still expected to tip just as much!
Provided a hotel has a significant guest occupancy, buffets can make tremendous financial sense. And there’s a reason some of the best buffets are in the biggest hotels such as those found in Las Vegas. They simply provide efficiencies at scale. But are they… hygienic?
During the pandemic many hotels eliminated buffets both because of fear of virus spread (especially when the belief was that Covid-19 spread primarily via fomites rather than aerosols) but also because lower hotel occupancy rates drove down the efficiency of offering buffets. (Some hotels closed their food and beverage outlets altogether.)
We saw staff serving guests directly, often via orders placed using QR codes. That meant a single staff member (or a server plus someone in the kitchen) handling food, rather than all guests in the hotel exposing themselves to your meal. When staffing became the binding constraint, we saw buffets return. But don’t they still have the same hygiene problems we suddenly became sensitized to during Covid?
Indeed, here’s a great question: you aren’t supposed to touch the food that you are going to take and eat. Instead you’re supposed to touch the same tongs everyone else has touched to pick up that food.
At the breakfast bar and wondering if having everybody touch the same pair of tongs in the same place is proven to be better than having everybody simply pick up their own piece of bread
— Dan Goldstein (@dggoldst) July 28, 2023
If you pick up a bagel off of the buffet, you touch only your own bagel and nobody else’s. But if you touch the tongs and use it to pick up the bagel, you’re touching the same thing that everyone else at the buffet has already touched. Surely that leads to greater spread of germs!
There’s a chance that touching a bagel might lead you to inadvertently touch another bagel. But with shared tongs, coming into contact with something someone else has touched is a certainty!
Here are potential arguments for tongs,
- In theory utensils should get changed out regularly, but so should food! The buffet leaves food out (unsafe for other reasons) but switches out tongs.
- Tongs don’t hold onto germs for as long as food does. It depends on the material the tongs are made out of!
- Touching food directly can deposit microbes straight onto the food, and then the next guest ingests those. While touching tongs might transfer the microbes onto someone else’s hands. But if they’re washing their hands regularly they may not ingest them.
A buffet actually interested in preventing spread of germs would make single-use tongs available to each guest. Use the tongs, deposit them for disinfecting once you’ve served yourself. But the goal isn’t preventing spread of germs, it’s conforming to (1) health codes, and (2) social convention.
My guess is they don’t wanna tell the truth that every time others touch the tongs, they take a risk? Who knows?
The hotels could give each guest a disposable glove at the start of the buffet line. That would work with tongs and also serving spoons for items like scrambled eggs.
“…the same hygiene problems we suddenly became sensitized to during Covid?”
Who’s “we”?
This may surprise you, but not everyone is an unhinged germaphobe.
Neurotoic germophobia like this was normalized by Covid and presents a good reason to knock it off immediately before it veers into permanent mass psychosis. There is no reason to believe, much less scientific evidence to support or even suggest, that tongs touched by other people present any danger to anybody. Our bodies are conditioned by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to withstand, fight off, and even develop resistance to common environmental germs presented by exposure to humans, animals, insects, etc. Unless you are undergoing chemotherapy or some other sickness or treatment which leaves you particularly vulnerable to environmental germs, these are not things to worry about, and not things to worry others about. In fact the opposite is true, and reduced exposure to environmental germs only makes your system more fragile when unavoidably exposed to them.
We all have the option to wash our hands, or disinfect them, after using tongs that have been used by others.
The reason that your expected to tip even though there is a buffet is your server typically is one of the folks setting up that buffet and or tearing it down at some point
It didnt get there from the tooth fairy or the chef and sometimes in a good hotel you get a ton more quality food leading to good value unless a rubbish buffet
It’s a ton of work behind the scenes s
Servers hate buffets as folks perceive they are doing nothing but serving tea and coffee
And those perceptions sadly to frequently do to lead to poor and no tipping sadly
We sometimes order Ala carte too and tip the same for Buffett as we do for the Ala carte menu items in 4 star or higher properties
If you are pleasant and offer good service we have our servers back even more so for the ones
that treat us well and remember us
Have you ever been to a Chinese banquet where the host serves you stuff with their own chopsticks that they have been eating with?
At least with buffet, you can wear disposable gloves or use wet wipes
I always use a napkin to hold tongs at salad bars and buffets. The tongs are filthy.
@Mark: Agree with pretty much everything you said (including the last point), and:
1. The disorder of neurotic “germophobia” is called mysophobia.
2. It was already broadly on the upswing well before COVID hit.
I’d still rather handle the tongs and then sanitize my hands at the table than have everyone handling my food at the buffet.
It’s refreshing to see that people are willing to openly discuss their mental health challenges nowadays.
buffet = diarrhea. If Covid had killed a million Americans and also killed breakfast buffets some would argue it was worth it.
But really Gary, I think you need to turn your attention to those European men’s rooms that have the big towel that goes around and spreads typhus. Covid didn’t even kill that which is shocking.
In Japan this March all the buffets had disposable gloves to wear when serving yourself at the hotel buffets. They were the large cheap ones like a plastic sandwich bag with fingers. One place (I think the Crowne Plaza Hiroshima) even had a motion activated blower glove dispenser to make it easy to slide your hands into the gloves.
Of note: that inexpensive Crowne Plaza Hiroshima had a great buffet with Western and Japanese dishes. It also had another restaurant option with a sit down set Japanese breakfast. Typical small guest room though.
@rich
I spent both pandemic summers traveling around europe (best summers of my life)
Many hotels were handing out gloves, and many guests (including myself) did not take them
That’s why I carry a small bottle of Purell with me (70% alcohol). I’m currently in Thailand, and all the food buffets offer disposable plastic gloves, and people use them. In America, it would the “mask” controversy all over again. Best to protect yourself (with 70% alcohol sanitizer) than create a controversy.
Gary
A friend of mine is director of sales of a major hotel in vegas
They eliminated the buffet when the pandemic was over because even at current occupancy it looses money, and always did, so they took the opportunity to shut them down
The only buffets that returned post pandemic are the very high priced one like bellagio (60 usd breakfast) and baccanal at caesars (100 usd pp)
At low price points it is a money loser and it was used only to lure people into the casinos
Here’s a novel idea, do you want to pick it up with your hands and you think that’s more sanitary than do it… I’m assuming this is just clickbait because most people really aren’t that concerned.
THANK YOU.
Please spread this word far and wide.
Tongs are disease magnets.
Secret: be the first at the morning buffe!
I go to a real good buffet in Texas. During the pandemic they had the employees servings us. Then they put out gloves and ask the customers to wear those while serving themselves. I was glad this place survived.
Norovirus is the main issue with shared items that you touch. Even some hand sanitizers can’t eliminate the issue. It’s the main way it spreads on cruise ships and hotels or other buffets aren’t immune to this.
I’m surprised I haven’t yet been killed by a lethal breakfast tong.
– or maybe they should simply not allow people with OCD anywhere near the buffet. Problem solved.
I attribute the fact that I almost never get sick while traveling all over the world, including to places that don’t sanitize buffet tongs, to the fact that as a kid we played all day, got exposed to stuff, and built up immunity. I take the normal precautions like not drinking the tap water where it’s not safe, avoiding raw fruit and vegetables where they’re not safe. I told someone who was worried about a lot of things that “If I didn’t ever do anything that could potentially, remotely, maybe possibly cause harm I would miss out on 90 percent of the travel experiences I enjoy.” I have no problem with those who don’t want to handle tongs – just wear a glove or sanitize afterwards.
You also touch the chair, the table, the condiments dispenser, the door handle the coffee dispenser yadda yadda yadda…..
Where does it end?
Just. Stay. Home.
Awww….Germaphobe Gary is back!
Better have single use door handles when you enter the restaurant. Or paper disposal seat covers at the tables. Don’t touch the credit card reader, it could have Ebola on it. Watch out… the wait staff aren’t in hazmat suits, they could spread SARS.
Or…if the tongs bother you: don’t eat at buffets.
There’s better food elsewhere, anyway.
Worrying about tongs. Worrying about how old your mattress is.
I prefer to just worry if my damn plane is going to be on time.
Good land of the living.
Gary, why do you ever leave the house?
First world problems.
so use a napkin around the tongs. Better than mixing food by having tongs touching multiple items (some people don’t want meat or pork or nuts etc)
like the waiter touching everyone’s glass when they fill it?
I take a personal bottle of sanitizer with us to the buffet. When we sit back down to eat we just hit it. If it’s just bread or a muffin or whatnot, I just grab them with my hands.
@Mike Murphy but that is just one waiter who hopefully or at least is required to wash their hands, touching a glass. They don’t handle your food with their bare hands. In any case is much less likely that the one person will be sick, whereas a buffet with dozens and sometimes hundreds of persons, you are guaranteed to have some disgusting people or some kids who just went to the bathroom or picked their nose, then grabbed the tongues, or worse, grabbed a piece of toast, decided they didn’t like how it looked, and put it back. Not a good analogy.
Gary, if you are concern about tongs, I suggest you go to webstaurantstorecom and order a case of Visions 7″ extra heavy-duty black disposable polypropylene tongs ($1.49/each) to take with you when you travel. According to the website, while representing “a simple yet elegant design, these tongs combine appearance and functionality into one great product. Pick up everything from pastries, bagels, and other desserts to fresh fruits, vegetables, and salads! These tongs are even heat-resistant for added versatility, making them ideal for your buffet or special event.” Perhaps, Amazon would have even a better deal like they had for N95 mask on which you stocked up in the past.
The main heath concerns with buffets in hotels and airline clubs are not the tongs but health of the workers handling the food and control on re-using leftovers. Certain metal surfaces and copper in particular would kill most of bacteria and viruses. However, if you an uncompromised individual, you may want to limit an exposure .
At a time when most bloggers are afraid to raise controversial opinions, Gary is the exception. Whether it is buffet lines or refillable shampoo bottles, he is willing to put at risk his income stream in furtherance of expressing his true thoughts.
Society is undoubtedly safer with higher degrees of cleanliness, but not many more would be alive if these practices were commonplace in 2020. We learned that touch has little to do with the transfer of Covid, which is primarily spread through the air.
I agree with Gary’s conclusions about tongs vs touch, but am not so certain of the severity of the problem. But I must admit, I immediately washed my hands after reading this post!
What if I told you in Mexico they make the tacos with their bare hands and there are still millions of Mexicans! Uncanny…..
My wife of 18 years grew up in a poor Philippine home. She laughs at you germaphobes and your minuscule problems. ( compared to other issues). She rarely gets sick and attributes that to her natural immunity built up when she was young. Makes sense. I grew up in an upper middle class US home and get sick far more than she does. Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill.
“Bob” you are too funny!
This article is a new low. If it bothers you, wear some gloves. Otherwise, dine only at home … there are germs everywhere. Come to think about it, if you’re worried about germs, stay at home as well.
@ Mak. Careful . . . you’re being way to logical in a culture controlled by emotions. Having said that I will admit to getting up and leaving the Chili’s in DFW last week due to a woman bringing her Emotional Support ankle biter to the table next to me at the indoor restaurant (yes it is illegal in Texas unless the dog is TRAINED Service Dog.) A tip of the hat to Spock.
At the end of the day all issues of food sanitation involving humans come down to – did you wash your hands, or not. Gloves, tongs, etc are just a way to offload the REALITY of microbial transmission to APPEARANCE. An employee or a buffet user sticking a just-washed hand into the eggs is 100% safer than someone who doesn’t clean themselves properly using tongs, and the latter will end up spreading whatever he has, but it takes more effort to check for this so regulations designed for the convenience of inspectors rather than to keep people safe will continue to mandate the theater.