National Buffet Day Date in the current year: January 2, 2024

A buffet is a system of serving meals in which food is placed in a public area where diners can access it and serve themselves. This type of meal began to gain popularity in the late 19th century; buffet-style meals were often served at large balls, where there wasn’t enough space or servants to serve a traditional meal to all the guests.

The term buffet is French; it refers to a type of sideboard furniture where the food was placed during buffet meals. Interestingly, in some languages (Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Polish, Hungarian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian) such meal is often called “Swedish table” as a reference to smörgåsbord, a traditional Swedish buffet-style meal. Smörgåsbord received international renown in 1939, when it was used to showcase Swedish cuisine at the New York World’s Fair.

Buffet meals are often offered at social events, hotels, and restaurants because it is a convenient way to serve many people at once. Besides, buffets allow diners to immediately view their choices, select as many dishes as they want, and take as much food as they can eat. There are buffets that feature staffed stations in addition to serving tables, where restaurant employees carve meat or prepare dishes like crepes or omelettes.

Buffet restaurants are pretty popular in the United States. Some of them focus on a specific cuisine (for example, Chinese, Indian, pan-Asian, Mediterranean), while others serve a specific type of food (pasta, salads, seafood, pizza, sushi, grilled meat, soup). Some buffets operate on an all-you-can-eat basis, where diners are charged a fixed price for entry and then may consume as much food as they wish, while others charge for each dish or based on the weight of the food if diners are expected to plate the food themselves.

Unfortunately, we don’t know who came up with the idea of celebrating National Buffet Day and when it was celebrated for the first time. But do you really need to know the detailed history of this amazing holiday in order to observe it? The only thing that matters is that National Buffet Day provides you with the perfect excuse to indulge in delicious food, be it pasta, salad, pizza, seafood, or sushi.

The best way to celebrate National Buffet Day is, of course, to have lunch or dinner at your favorite buffet-style restaurant or check out a new one. Another way to observe the holiday is to host a buffet-style meal for your family and friends; if you don’t have enough time or money to make it happen, you can host a potluck buffet. And don’t forget to spread the word about the holiday on social media using the hashtags #NationalBuffetDay and #BuffetDay.