The Best All-You-Can-Eat Buffets In Every State

If there is one thing more American than apple pie, it's a buffet with boundless, unlimited food options. The word buffet might be French, and the dining style's predecessor might have been the Swedish smorgasbord, but nowadays, the best buffets are in the U.S.A. From quintessential Chinese-American feasts to buttery rolls and soft-serve ice cream machines, the all-you-can-eat buffet was perfected in the new world.  

Now is a great time to dine without limits. The pandemic wasn't kind to self-serve establishments, and inflation hasn't been a boon to buffets, either. Any buffet that survived the last few years of turmoil has a few tricks up its sleeve. We set out on a grand tour to find out what was hiding inside the chafing plates of this country's best surviving all-you-can-eat options. We excluded all-you-can-eat-buffet chains with a significant national presence on our list of each state's best buffet. While there are undoubtedly some great Golden Corrals and Shoney's out there, the buffets you're about to meet are local legends. 

The call of the wild led us towards all-you-can-eat salmon piled high on an alder wood-fired grill in Juneau. The night starts with a bowl of clam chowder and a walk through the beer tent before you settle into the festivities, which include live music in addition to the grilled salmon feast. Several local tour groups run day trips that end the adventure at the Salmon Bake. No matter what night you dine, roaring waterfalls set the mood, and the river provides great ambiance 24/7. 

You'll have to keep track of Fat Chance's whereabouts on Facebook. The catering company and buffet doesn't have much of an internet presence, probably because it's too busy frying frogs' legs. That hasn't stopped the buffet from building a dedicated local following that's clamoring for crab cakes. The buffet king of De Queen, Arkansas, has a legendary local menu. Offerings span from catfish to chicken strips, always served with heaping piles of boiled or fried shrimp. 

Nederland, Colorado's Kathmandu restaurant provides heaping piles of authentic Nepalese food. The restaurant's quality is evidenced by its wide-ranging selection of awards. Kathmandu was recognized in the past as the best Boulder restaurant above 8,000 feet, the best Indian food in Boulder, and the best restaurant in Nederland. The restaurant's success is built on the back of its authentic flavor and its lunch buffet. Head to the buffet lineup to scoop your Northern Indian and Himalayan delicacies and expect to find fresh naan waiting for you when you return to the table.   

The Old Mill Crab House backs up its respectable meme game with four fresh all-you-can-eat options that escalate exponentially. The entry-level option is called Delmarvelous Fried Chicken and comes with fried chicken & shrimp, hush puppies, clam strips, and corn on the cob. Start to build some steam by adding steamed shrimp to the ensemble, a taste so tempting that passionate fans drive 3+ hours for a biannual all-you-can-eat bonanza. And if that's not quite enough to fill your plate, you can upgrade to the two most luxurious options featuring snow and/or blue crabs.

If you close your eyes and dream of Southern food, chances are the first ten things that pop into your head are available now at the Ole Times Country Buffet. This love letter to traditional Southern cooking is a safe space to sample all sorts of American classics. There is a saying on the wall inside of Ole Times Country Buffet: "Southern cookin' makes ya good lookin'." Every time we see another full plate of fried okra departing the queue, we can't help but agree. Lady's Fingers are always a sign of a good time on a Southern menu. Around these parts, they call fried okra Georgia popcorn and practically serve it by the bushel.

 Stockman's banquet menu features six great buffet options, but you don't need to rent out the whole space to eat it all. The state's best steakhouse has all-you-can-eat sirloin steak that pairs well with Idaho potatoes that come mashed, loaded, baked, garlic-y, or fried with parmesan. Each endless steak order comes with your choice of two sides, so while you could always double up on mashed potatoes & gravy, strategically speaking, you might want to opt for grilled onions to save stomach space for sirloin.  

Stoll's Lakeview buffet takes the traditional flavor from Amish Country and heads down south into Martin County. The buffet serves the cuisine from Amish strongholds in Elkhart and Lagrange counties in a building on West Bogg Lake in Loogootee. An unlimited supply of Amish comfort food makes for a smashing success, and the buffet is the #1-rated restaurant in Loogootee on Tripadvisor. While the proprietors aren't afraid to embrace modern technology to keep the buffet running, the unique restaurant hasn't been redecorated since the 1980s. For decades, it's been serving the same fried chicken and continuing to enjoy success. 

This strip mall standout is enjoying a great run, taking home several Wichita Eagle Reader's Choice Awards every year. In 2019, The Wichita Eagle's Reader's Choice Awards named Buffet City best in five classes. The Eagle's readers voted by the plateful, nominating and awarding the establishment for the best lunch, best Chinese, best locally-owned, and best pho, all underneath one green chandelier. It also marked four years of dominance as the best all-you-can-eat buffet. Two years later, Buffet City claimed the title of best family restaurant and reached the top of the charts in six categories. One buffet restaurant sweeping awards like that in the largest city in Kansas deserves recognition. 

You can't just walk into the Court Of Two Sisters. Stomp, sway, and strut your way to your seat and enjoy a Jazz brunch in New Orleans' French Quarter. Seven days a week, live music accompanies an all-you-can-eat display, Louisiana-style. The menu offers rare opportunities for improvisation, like coating breakfast pastries in chicken & sausage gumbo for a Creole twist on biscuits & gravy. Time your entrance right and enjoy plenty of time to sample both the breakfast and lunch-only options. A changing of the guard at 11:30 replaces breakfast classics like scrambled eggs and hashbrowns with lunch options like pasta primavera and shrimp etouffee. 

Hooper's Crab House works differently, with a wide-ranging a la carte selection, including a Lil' Hooper Troopers kids menu, to offer meals for all stomach sizes. Anyone just wanting a salad doesn't have to pay full price, and everyone else can crack unlimited crab. The all-you-can-eat experience consists of five key dishes: steamed crabs, steamed shrimp, Hooper's fried chicken, corn on the cob, and hush puppies. Add on Hooper's Stadium Cup Special and enjoy $4 refills of draft beers for as long as you keep putting back shrimp. 

Step through the doors and stop by the lobster tank to decide if you'd like to add a live lobster to the already wide-ranging buffet. Even if you say no to crustaceans, you'll have an aisle full of fresh fish to scoop in the sushi section alone. The selection of sea creatures runs as deep as the giant squid sleeps, slowly transitioning from fresh sushi to fried and steamed options with rows of oysters, mussels, crab legs, and peel-your-own crawfish. Fuji fills out its offerings with a decadent kimchi & seafood salad stand and a steamer station featuring chicken feet.

The SunHerald polled 120,000 readers to discover their favorite casino buffet. The Palace dominated from start to finish, garnering more than 74% of the vote in the final round. Perhaps the secret to the buffet's large fanbase is its wide-ranging station selection. The buffet serves up dinner with four cooking stations that turn the all-you-can-eat offerings up a notch. Cooks prepare made-to-order dishes at the Flames, Coastal, and Asian stations, while the Comfort department offers up Southern classics.

The best restaurants take care of the details, like a cup of hot tea on a cold night, to turn a dinner into an experience. This humble buffet recently received new owners who have proven they don't mind cooking things to order during slower days. The location used to be known as L & D Buffet and enjoyed a brief run as Red Sugar Dim Sum before turning into Golden Chinese Buffet. The new buffet earned its place on our list with a stellar combination of steaming piles of Chinese food and story after story of customer service excellence.  

The immaculate execution of Bacchanal Buffet's dishes has earned the restaurant international recognition as one of the most extensive buffets in Las Vegas. Sin City is the American capital of excess, with a strip full of luxurious casinos and all-you-can-eat options. A few staggering numbers help the Bacchanal Buffet stand out. This spread stretches across 25,000 square feet of restaurant space, cooked across ten different kitchens and nine live cooking stations. This buffet specializes in absolutely everything. From a ceviche bar to Wagyu hot dogs and a made-to-order crepe bar, you have ninety minutes to enjoy an entire world of flavor.

Atlantic City followed Las Vegas' blueprint in the dining department to come up with its own range of absurdly populated buffets. Sitting at the top of the leaderboards is The Borgata Buffet, where the chef says to wear loose pants. Borgata entertains with an immense all-you-can-eat seafood selection, but the wide-ranging spread consists of much more than fried saltwater creatures. You can fill plate after plate with Italian, Asian, and American cuisine and save some room to sample one of the best dessert bars in the city.  

The Big Apple is home to some of the absolute best American restaurants in the U.S. Turns out, it's also home to plenty of folks who like their crab legs, and many of them choose to dine at the Crab House. Don't let the name fool you; there's plenty more than crab in the house tonight. Ranging from choices like crawfish and garlic shrimp to baby back ribs and broccoli in brown sauce, The Crab House cooks an unlimited supply of seafood & meat, all at a flat rate. A splash of extra cash opens up the lobster buffet, which is everything on the menu, plus four fresh takes on lobster. 

Gramma Sharon has long since retired, but the hotplate stays on. Her daughter has taken over the family restaurant and helped the restaurant serve chicken-fried steak to Williston for over 35 years. The community culture inside those hallowed halls is reinforced by employees who have been around for decades. Business is also booming thanks to pasta bar Wednesdays and weekend buffets. A balanced brunch spread provides an extensive salad bar, bacon & sausage piled high, and a homestyle swath of fried goodness.  

Whether you call it Berta's Mexican Café, Berta's Taco's, or Berta's Buffet, you're at home here. The restaurant has all three signs out front, and inside, it serves a genuinely authentic Mexican feast that's only over when you say it is. This humble buffet doesn't have the 250+ choices some grand casinos offer, but it does more with less. There is a surprising lineup of vegetarian dishes, pizza rolls, and pasta across from the fried tacos and refried beans. The best part about Berta's is the inconsistency. You'll find a surprise ingredient or new entree as every lunch brings a slightly different menu del dia. 

Billed as the county's largest smorgasbord, the shade of this maple covers 200 feet of Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. Based on food reviewer Vafunseekers, the 200 feet are put to good use. Including the drink station, it takes the reviewer almost seven full minutes to walk through the buffet and name each item. That's a whole lot of old-country cooking to sample. There's even mush, a Pennsylvanian boiled corn specialty. The restaurant sits an hour outside downtown Philadelphia, but this immense spread and the down-home flavor make it worth the drive.

As the original buffet on Myrtle Beach's Grand Strand, this buffet and its signature lighthouse are local landmarks. Feeding beachgoers 170 different items since 1986, this is the oldest and largest buffet in a beach town that welcomes over 19 million visitors annually. That all adds up to a whole lot of crab legs. Benjamin's isn't one of those all-you-can-eats that encourage quick turnover. You can send the kids to the nautical museum and arcade while you head back for another plate. 

Brooks Shaw's Old Country Store is one of the absolute best buffet restaurants in the U.S. The buffet serves Casey Jones village with an all-you-can-eat helping of Southern soul food. Stroll through Casey Jones' historic shop where thousands of authentic Southern antiques are on display while you contemplate another portion, but heading back for more smoked BBQ bologna and hot tamale pie is inevitable. The buffet also offers 14 to 15 vegetables daily, or 16 if you count the cracklin' cornbread. 

Chuck-A-Rama is closing in on sixty years of excess. One of the longest-running buffets on our list has made it past the half-century mark thanks to a groundswell of local support. After the pandemic shut down self-service, loyal Chuck-A-Rama fans patiently waited and consistently checked in with the restaurant to find its re-opening date. 

The popular restaurant has carved out its abundant place at the head of the buffet table thanks to heaps and loads of kid-friendly choices for picky eaters and local legends like deep-fried Utah scones and frog-eye salad.

The Story of Captain George's is the story of the American Dream. It started with humble beginnings and ended with 30,000 pounds of crab legs served weekly. The buffet restaurant has slowly built up its entree selections to include over 20 steamed, fried, and smoked options from land and sea. Captain George also invested significant effort into the dessert department. There are fourteen different sugary ways to end your meal, all homemade and presented on the buffet bar in infinite quantities. 

The Rio De Grill Brazilian steakhouse is waiting at the end of winding country roads with plenty of hot meat and a great discount if you only want to access the salad bar. While the freshly grilled pineapple flows like the Shenandoah River, you really shouldn't come here just to sample the Caesar. Upgrade to tableside meat and take advantage of a two-tone table fixture. Flip it to green, and servers routinely stop off with fresh hunks of meat until you wave the white flag and turn your table back to red. 

The Food Network calls this epic prime rib buffet a grand slam. Smack-dab in the middle of the rodeo capital of the Cowboy State, a whole lot of history and rib roast come together to create an unforgettable trip (or three) to the buffet bar. The Irma Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and takes that designation seriously. You'll enjoy seafood, potatoes, desserts, and plenty of prime rib amongst taxidermied game animals and artifacts from the state's rough and tumble history.