All-You-Can-Eat Sushi Customer Hides Uneaten Roll in Hilarious Spot to Avoid Wasted-Food Fee
Published Jan. 8 2024, 3:16 p.m. ET
The all-you-can-eat label often associated with buffets is a bit of a tease.
Take it from popular TikTok creator Madison (@ugh_madison), who went to an all-you-eat hibachi buffet with the mission of finding out if it was actually an all-you-can-eat buffet or if it was just unlimited grub as long as you didn't overstay your welcome. Well, after four and a half hours, it appeared to be the latter as she was kicked out of the restaurant after the manager began complaining about her to the waitstaff.
Still, she made out pretty good given that she only paid $13 for her multiple hibachi platters.
That’s not the only all-you-can-eat experience that Madison has embarked on. She also spent 12 hours leeching off a buffet at Golden Corral for a grand total of $12.92. And she tested the limits of CiCi's Pizza's endless buffet, where stayed for eight hours and paid just $9 for unlimited pizza.
Some all-you-can-eat buffets aren't as generous as others, as some may charge you if you don’t finish everything that is on your plate. Granted, Madison would likely be good at dodging any uneaten food fees, but a lot of people aren’t — like the folks in the story video below.
If you’ve been to an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet and struggled to lick your plate clean, you can probably relate to the hilarious video below.
A woman films her male friend try to hide an uneaten sushi roll in a baby food container.
TikTok user Sidney Scharpf shared a video while seemingly out for all-you-can-eat sushi with some friends. “When you forget how much you ordered for all you can eat sushi and they charge for wasted food," she wrote in the video's caption.
In the six-second clip, she films her male friend picking up a sushi roll with his chopsticks and moving it toward his mouth as if he is going to eat it. But, he then abruptly drops the roll into what looks to be a baby food container and hides it under the table with a smirk on his face.
"We couldn't eat another piece," Sidney wrote in the caption, followed by three laughing face emojis.
A TikTok user unfamiliar with the policy commented on the video, "I’m genuinely asking, they don’t give you a to-go box?"
As users tried to relay to her, some all-you-can-eat places only want customers to order as much as they'll eat. If they fail to finish what they ordered, there are sometimes fees imposed for uneaten food. Some sushi places, for example, may charge $1 for each sushi roll left behind, while others may just charge a flat fee for leftovers. Meanwhile, some places only charge if you want to take the food home, while others only charge you for the leftovers fee and don't allow you to take them home. Each place is different.
That said, many folks could relate to the man in Sidney's video trying to make his sushi rolls disappear to avoid paying more. In fact, users revealed the crazy hiding spots they used for uneaten food while at all-you-can-eat sushi.
"I used to have to hide the food in the plants!" read one comment.
Another user wrote: "Did this on a date. I filled my mouth up and spit it out in the bathroom. There was no second date lol."
A third claimed that their husband and son took a few trips to the bathroom trash to dispose of the sushi.
One user even dished on how they hid sushi rolls in their shirt, but an employee noticed and started chasing them.
But not everyone goes to such drastic measures. A handful of users claimed they come prepared with plastic baggies and/or napkins to take their food home. And one user shared how they strategically ask for the bill while on their last round of sushi because then the server will assume there won't be any leftovers and won't charge for them.