A buffet meal for just 500 bucks! That’s a steal you say. You are going to pig out and eat more than the money’s worth and that is also going to be a factor that will make you happy at the end of a filling meal. But is a buffet really that worth your money? Are those combo meals you see in the fast food chains worth it either? For a large part of the food industry, no, they are not. Why? Let’s take a walk through the economics of a meal you think you are getting for cheap. Buffet meals are extremely profitable and cheap to make for restaurants You serve yourself – there is not need for waiters at all. Everything is prepared in huge quantities and laid out for you – it is basically a fancy mess, just like your hostel days. Vegetables are really cheap in huge quantities, and so is meat. Plus, there is no plating and everything is laid out for everyone to eat. Also, the starters waiters bring in as soon as you sit on the table – terming them as “samples” are just to fill you in quickly, and are relatively cheaper.

And even alcoholic beverages in hotels are horribly marked up, even if they look really cheap

“Happy hours” are not exactly happy hours. Most of the alcohol are horribly overpriced, and if you could stop and calculate, the markup would be anywhere between 200 and 300%. That means you are paying thrice the amount you should ideally pay.

Also, just because you cannot see the alcohol coming out of the bottle because you are chatting with your friends, it could be watered down, or diluted. And most of the restaurants caught with selling watered down alcohol turn out to be the happy hour places.

Pastas and sauces are very easy to make too

Have you ever been to a supermarket and bought pasta for yourselves? It is pretty cheap, right? It is actually cheaper for the restaurants because they buy it in wholesale rates, which makes it cheaper.

And unless the restaurant is putting in exotic seafood and meat, it doesn’t really cost that much for the restaurants, and hence, they end up making a lot of profit.