LOST VEGAS: The Cheap Buffet

Posted on: February 24, 2025, 12:00h. 

Last updated on: February 24, 2025, 07:01h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.
  • Half of Las Vegas’ “affordable” buffets have closed over the past five years
  • Buffets have been a Vegas staple since 1946
  • Though COVID is blamed for many of the closings, other factors played a more significant role

Less than five years ago, 22 relatively affordable buffets lined the Las Vegas Strip. Today, 11 are left — most of which are no one’s notion of affordable. So what happened? (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t COVID-19.)

The very first buffet in Las Vegas opened in the very first casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip. It cost only $1 and the unlimited coffee, as noted by the sign in this photo, was free. (Image: UNLV Special Collections)
Strip and Adjacent Casino Buffets Closed Since 2020
Last Buffets Standing
(Listed from Lowest Weekend Price)
1. Carnival World Buffet, Rio
1. Circus Buffet at Circus Circus, $19.99
2. Village Seafood Buffet, Rio
2. Fresh Buffet at Westgate Las Vegas, $28 (no dinner)
3. Le Village Buffet, Paris
3. The Buffet at Luxor, $31.99 (no dinner)
4. Buffet at Treasure Island
4. The Buffet at Excalibur, $32.99 (no dinner)
5. Sterling Brunch, Bally’s (now Horseshoe)
5. MGM Grand Buffet, $37.99 (no dinner)
6. Paradise Buffet, Flamingo
6. A.Y.C.E. Buffet at Palms Casino Resort, $42.99 (no dinner)
7. Buffet at Harrahs
7. Wynn Buffet, ($59.99 for brunch, $79.99 for dinner)
8. Feast Buffet, Palace Station
8. Wicked Spoon at Cosmopolitan, $62 (no dinner)
9. The Buffet at Aria
9. The Buffet at Bellagio, $74.99
10. Cravings Buffet, Mirage (casino then closed 2024)
10. Bacchanal Buffet, Caesars Palace, $84.99
11. Savor the Buffet, Tropicana (casino then closed 2024)
11. Signature Seafood Buffet, Genting Palace at Resorts World, $88

Lobster Tale

Sweden invented the smörgåsbord in the 16th century as a theoretically endless meal prepared for famished guests arriving from great distances. (Smörgås means open sandwich or bread and butter, and bord means table.) The Land of the Midnight Sun introduced the culinary concept to the world at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, and later at the Swedish Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

The Flamingo not only copied the El Rancho’s concept, it copied its name! It opened its own Chuck Wagon Buffet in 1947. (Image: Don Buel/Las Vegas News Bureau via Vintage Las Vegas)

English speakers took to calling it a buffet, which was easier to remember, after the French word for the sideboard table on which the endless food was served.

Fittingly, the first resort on the Strip to open a buffet was the first resort on the Strip. The Chuck Wagon opened in November 1946, five years after the El Rancho. For just $1, guests were allowed to gorge on all they wanted from midnight until 4 a.m.

Herb McDonald, the resort’s publicist, is credited with coming up with the idea after noticing how much guests loved his ritual of setting out free cold cuts, cheese, and bread at the bar for late-night gamblers after the restaurant had closed. (Originally, he laid out the spread to fix his own sandwiches.)

Honestly, that sounds like a myth rife for our other Casino.org series. Though there’s just not enough evidence to conclusively bust it, it’s hard to imagine that the Chuck Wagon wasn’t born out of someone noticing something else…

The Frontier’s Bountiful Buffet still included all-you-can-eat lobster for only $1.95 per person as late as 1973. (Image: Frontier)

Ever since gambling was legalized in Las Vegas in 1931, casinos earned at least 75% of their revenue from it. And sandwiches and coffee were an excellent sleep deterrent for exhausted guests who might end up — heaven forbid! — hitting the sack instead of gambling more.

Defining the rules for all Las Vegas buffets that followed, the Chuck Wagon lost money for the El Rancho. Yet the losses were a pittance compared to the house’s added wins.

Upping the Steaks

By the early 1950s, new El Rancho owner Beldon Katleman extended the Chuck Wagon’s hours to 24/7, upped the class of food (adding freshly sliced ham, deviled eggs, and Jell-O desserts), and changed its name to the Buckaroo Buffet.

Every other Las Vegas resort then opened its own version, lest they lose guests to the El Rancho.

The Silver Slipper offered “50 Epicurean delights, served 24 hours every day.” The Dunes dared to up its entry price to an outrageous $1.50 for its “Hunt Breakfast,” a weekends-only treat featuring bagels and lox, scrambled ranch eggs, lamb chops, and champagne.

The Flamingo even opened a buffet under the name Chuck Wagon!

Well into the ‘70s, inflation was still unknown to the Las Vegas buffet. Even the extravagant spread at Caesars Palace would set you back only $2.75.

What Killed the Cheap Vegas Buffet?

Though the COVID-19 pandemic is popularly fingered as the culprit, it merely provided casino companies with the perfect cover to quickly do what it had been slowly doing anyway — replacing buffets with food halls.

Circus-Circus murders
Circus Circus is the home of the last truly cheap Las Vegas Strip buffet. (Image: MGM Resorts International)

By the ‘90s, largely thanks to a revolution ushered in by Steve Wynn’s Mirage in 1989, it was dining and entertainment that provided 75% of a typical Las Vegas casino’s revenue, while gambling had shrunk to the other 25%.

Given those numbers, casinos started hiking their buffet prices — as well as reducing comped stays, shows, and drinks — to stop losing money.

At the same time, demand for all-you-can-eat restaurants was diminishing anyway. American eating habits shifted to emphasize quality over quantity. Fad diets, farm-to-table restaurants, and haute cuisine all bode poorly for sneeze-guarded fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

In response, the newly opened Rio invented the “super buffet” concept in 1992, successfully marketing its Carnival World Buffet as worth the then-exorbitant $11.99. The most lavish and extensive buffet ever introduced, it featured serving “islands” divided by cuisine: American, Mexican, Chinese, pizza, and Las Vegas’ first Mongolian grill.

While most of the buffets that reopened after the pandemic shutdown are of the super variety, even they’re beginning to make less sense considering the millions more per year that most casinos stand to earn by converting them into the food halls that high-end restaurant groups are willing to pay top dollar to rent space in.

“Lost Vegas” is an occasional Casino.org series spotlighting Las Vegas’ forgotten history. Click here to read other entries in the series. Think you know a good Vegas story lost to history? Email corey@casino.org.