Are You Allowed To Take A To-Go Box To A Buffet?
Before you rush to an all-you-can-get buffet thinking it's a clever way to stock up on food for the week, let's just cut to the chase: No, most buffets will not allow you to take things home. The concept of a buffet is pretty simple — you're paying to eat as much as you can during the time you are there. So doggy bags (or secretly slipping spring rolls into your purse) are definitely not encouraged.
Buffets, of course, rely on the ability of the restaurant to run as a business. All food in the building is managed by the restaurant, but the minute it leaves the premises, the restaurant no longer has control over it. And from a business perspective, if everyone started to pile up 10 extra servings of mac and cheese to bring home for the whole family, the restaurant's pricing structure would collapse.
Bringing leftover food home from a buffet is a potential hazard for other reasons — namely from the perspective of food safety. Buffet food has already been sitting out for hours by the time you arrive, and chances are, there are strict policies to monitor certain foods and throw them out once it's gotten to a certain time frame. So if you then grab that food — food that's close to reaching it's expiry window — and take it home, the restaurant can no longer monitor it. It turns out, not everything does well sitting under a heat lamp all afternoon, which is why there are 13 foods you should steer clear of when at a buffet.
What about buffets that do offer takeout?
Some buffets, however, do offer a bit of a mixed setup. These are establishments where you can either sit in or choose a takeout container, but the catch is that you'll usually pay for your food by weight. This kind of buffet does exist, and some grocery stores also have hot bars and salad bars that kind of lean into a buffet vibe and also work through a pay-by-weight system. It's a pretty good option if you want to skip the social element and take food home, or if you want to eat out and then grab another box for later.
To be clear: Dining at these hybrid-buffet establishments is not the same as sneaking food out of a regular buffet, which isn't being resourceful — it's just stealing. And you can expect that restaurant managers will take theft seriously if you're caught because restaurants already have enough to contend with in this economy, and buffets are no exception. There are some definite downsides to eating at buffets (just check out some of the all-you-can-eat buffet secrets you never wanted to know, if you're okay with losing your appetite, that is), but if you do find yourself at a buffet and you're hoping for some more grub, you should ask staff if you can take it out, or simply wait until you're ready to go back up for round two.