Affordable buffets with diversifying spreads are drawing customers as rising dine-in prices prompt people to seek out more cost-effective dining options.
As the country’s soaring market prices in food industries are forcing people to scrimp on eating outside home, restaurant businesses that invite customers to load up their plates as much as they want have risen as go-to places for broader age groups. Such businesses’ promising signs are also seen outside the country.
Pizza Mall, a dine-in franchise brand under Seoul-based Elandeats, has proven that an affordably priced buffet with various types of pizza and a salad bar can spread buzz. For 12,900 won ($9.49), an adult patron can gorge on more than seven different kinds of pizza for lunch during weekdays.
Pizza Mall’s sales during the first half of this year jumped 10 percent from the same period last year. Compared to 2022 when the country’s dine-in market was in a years-long freeze under COVID-19, sales have surged by 40 percent.
Beyond just the rising sales, Pizza Mall has also created scenes different from the past. Customers in their 40s or older dominate the restaurant’s locations. Their portion 한국을 among the brand’s total customers during the first quarter this year was 60.1 percent, up from 46.8 percent in 2020.
“Pizza Mall, among other all-you-can-eat franchise brands under Elandeats, used to be popular particularly among young customers,” an Elandeats official said. “But the trend’s key age groups began shifting to older visitors.”
Dookki, a tteobokki buffet restaurant franchise brand, has been expanding its global network since 2016. Using the stir-fried rice cakes with various sauces, the brand has opened 171 locations across 11 countries, including the United States, Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan. The figure jumped from 87 in 2020.
Dareun, which launched the brand in Seoul in 2014, targeted global markets by diversifying sauces and side ingredients to better cater to taste buds of local consumers in each country.
Foods that have never been tried in the country’s local buffet market have also begun appealing to customers.
Breads and pastries attract visitors at Samjeong Bakery Cafe in Uijeongbu and EveryDay Christmas in Goyang, both in Gyeonggi Province, with unlimited servings.
Fried chicken also joined the trend last month when a Genesis BBQ restaurant in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, offered an all-you-can-eat option for 8,000 won. The global franchise company has never previously rolled out a buffet menu. It stirred the public so fast the restaurant has temporarily rescinded the offer.
“We’re now considering whether a chicken buffet will leave us any money,” a company official said. “Chicken involves a high rate of wages. If we decide to go with the option, it would have to be limited to areas with guaranteed sales like commercially developed zones concentrated with offices.”
Buffets are increasingly beating other dine-in businesses in the country, according to market observers. Finda, a Seoul-based fintech company, used an AI analysis tool to examine the country’s food business with at least one online platform. It found that buffet businesses’ sales in June in overall jumped 22 percent from the previous year.
While the country’s overall dine-in market was valued at 11.6 trillion won last year and has remained almost static, buffet businesses, unlike other styles of restaurants like Japanese, Chinese and Western, have shown ascending graphs, it added.