Is All-You-Can-Eat More Than Your Business Can Swallow?

The famous line from the Simpson's episode: "'Tis no man; 'tis a remorseless eating machine" encapsulates the fear of any restaurant owner offering an all-you-can-eat deal. Growing up near the fishing town of Tveria, Israel, I saw firsthand how customers, who ate mountains of fish at a fixed cover charge, drove one restaurant out of business and led all others to form a pact never to offer an all-you-can-eat buffet again. In today's economy, all-you-can-eat promotions exist outside restaurants as well, but in all instances the problem of over-consumption remains a deterrent. Here's a look at all-you-can-eat business examples and ramifications.

24 Hour Pancake Madness

According to an OC Weekly Blogs report, when the restaurant chain, Denny's, came out with an all-you-can-eat pancake special for $5, seven teenagers settled in at the Foothill, California, branch, for a 24-hour eating marathon. The boys consumed 43 pancakes each, causing the Denny's kitchen to run out of pancake batter and rush out to buy more. When the 24 hours were up, 301 pancakes were consumed for a total charge of $35.

Too Fat, Not Welcome!

According to a Fox News report, a 6-foot-3 man weighing 277 lbs. was astonished when his favorite all-you-can-eat haunt, Manchuria Restaurant, presented him with a bill for double the buffet cost. When the waitress explained that he and his companion were too fat and ate too much, an altercation ensued that resulted in the police being called to the scene. The story appeared on Yahoo News, Fox News, and many online news websites, causing the restaurant bad publicity.

All-You-Can-Stream

A Business Insider report takes a look at Net Neutrality, currently backed by the FCC in response to Google lobbyists. This will likely mean the end of all-you-can-eat internet usage and a transition to consumption-based billing models. The Net Neutrality model throws a new perspective on the question of all-you-can-eat business consequences. Any business relying on transferring videos, audios or other forms of large data across the internet will end up paying more for its internet service if all-you-can-eat internet bandwidth consumption comes to an end.

Crabby Management

According to a Free Republic Blog report, the failure of a 2003 all-you-can-eat crab promotion at Red Lobster resulted in the removal of its President and Chief Operating officer, Edna Morris. Company executives are reported to have said that Red Lobster management had failed to accurately calculate customer consumption. As raw crab prices rose, the company saw their profits crashing.

Don't Eat, And We'll Charge You!

Flicker from Yahoo reports an interesting variation on the all-you-can-eat restaurant model. To combat the tendency of customers to pile mountains of food on their plates simply because of the fixed cover charge, a restaurant promised to charge only the agreed upon buffet cost no matter how much a customer eats, but to also charge for every piece of food left uneaten on the plate.

Smartphone All-You-Can-Eat

A business report from The Independent speaks of an all-you-can-eat data package from the UK mobile phone company, Three. Offering customers a smartphone package with unlimited internet browsing, the company seeks to attract the growing market share of users who rely on data plans. Rather than contend with surprise usage charges at the end of the month, customers will pay a flat fee for smartphone internet usage. By contrast, mobile phone provider, O2, chose to end their all-you-can-eat monthly packages.

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