All You Can Eat

I got a phone call from corporate yesterday and spent on hour talking about the future for The Old Country Buffet. Mr. Hendersen and I adressed alot of pressing issues facing the all-you-can-eat establishment and discussed the scathing comment card left behind by my wife in our last visit;

"Jeff, we're both men of the world and we both recgonize exactly what the problem is. You're understaffed and the dessert station at the Dickson City location looks like a war-zone...especially on Thursdays (family night)."

Breakfast was next on the agenda and I quickly realized that the bigwigs in corporate are as passionate about it as I am: "Mr. Eckstein, I fully agree. Why The Country Buffet took grits and biscuit gravy off their Sunday brunch menu is a total mystery."

"Asinine. It defeats the point that The Golden Corral, Big Buddy's Buffet and Martha's Big Meals and other second tier smorgasbords don't provide old traditional breakfast choices. Anyone can do soggy pancakes and a couple of greasy links. It's not just about eating in Biblical proportions–it's about opening eyes," I countered.

Jeff admitted it's all about education. My next book, "All You Can Eat; Getting Your Money's Worth Every Meal...Even If It Kills You," a non-fiction graphic novel well over 400 pages is a start. To their credit, The Country Buffet's section have put on their website, How To Buffet, a good primer for those who didn't know how to turn dinner into a spectacle (although no mention of my famous Catch n' Release sampling method which I teach at my workshops).

But we ended on a good note, both expressing our excitement about the premiere of Rancher's Select Steak next Spring and of course I was promised to be invovled in the upcoming symposium in Austin. There's alot of work still left for us but I'm confident we're on the same page and share the common goal. As I said, "It's not dinner unless it hurts."