An Open Letter to Anthony Wedo, CEO and President of Buffets, Inc.

Dear Mr. Wedo:

A week ago I published an article on this website in review and reaction to your appearance on the television show, Undercover Boss. One could look at why you decided to go on television on this "Reality Show" as either a publicity "stunt" for your restauants or to actually show your sincerity about helping a business that has seen two bankruptcies in managing several chains of restaurants and, at the same time, caring about the quality of restaurant and service those restaurants bring to your customers. I would like to believe that your reason was a little of both, with an emphsis on quality and service to customers, because that is the only reason that will keep your businesses running.

I have been dining at Old Country Buffets, Ryan's, and Fire Mountain restaurants for many years. I have generally had dinner in one of your restaurants at least once every week for the past several years. As we are located in New York on Long Island, there are two Old Country Buffets locally. I dined at one of those Old Country Buffets tonight with my wife. We are just five minutes from the Old Country Buffet in Levittown, New York. We usually drive forty minutes to the Old Country Buffet in Bay Shore, New York. We spend the extra money for gas to make that trip because that location has been far superior to the Levittown location. I have to share that immediately after my last two meals at that Old Country Buffet - a week and a half apart from each other - I had food poisoning. We decided that we would not go back there for a while and despite the long standing problems at the Levittown, New York Old Country Buffet we would try that location again, the next time that we would go to an Old Country Buffet.

You went undercover to four restaurants in your chain for a day each. Everyone of your customers is going undercover to your restaurants every day. Actually, I was amazed that you only encountered one problem employee and less than satisfactory conditions at only one of the buffets that you visited undercover. I only wish that I had the clout of a corporate executive at Buffets, Inc. to react to what took place at the Levittown Old Country Buffet tonight. My readers know that I have said several times in the past that I would not go back to the Levittown OCB because of what goes on there, but every so often I decide to go back and give it another try and see if there maybe has been an improvement. Less than five minutes of coming through the door and paying for our dinners tonight, I was regretting having come back.

We were at the buffet on a Sunday evening for dinner.  The dining room was crowded and we sat ourselves - as the sign indicated. There were two tables for four open next to each other in the center of the dining room closest to the buffet. One of those tables was covered in dirty dishes. The other table at first glance looked like it had been cleaned and prepared for the next guest - at least there were no dirty dishes or glasses on it. As we were about to sit down, we saw that the table was covered in grease and sticky dried food. My wife said that we should not sit there and looked for another table. There were none - other than tables for six and we did not want to take up such a large table for just the two of us. We looked for an employee to clean the table that we had first found. There was no one around. We looked across the dining room and saw no one to speak with to ask to have the table cleaned. At this point, I suggested to my wife that we take the dinner ticket and receipt, return to the cashier, and ask for our money back and leave.  My wife was about to agree and then suggested that we could wash the table ourselves if we brought napkins up to the water spigot at the soda area. That was what we did - we washed the table ourselves - as best as we could. The table still was not clean. We looked around at the surrounding tables and saw that no one had been around for quite some time to remove dirty dishes from the tables and on each table dishes were stacking up in piles. I wondered then what you would have done had you been there "undercover". We went up to the buffet to start our meal.

We went over to get a cup of the soup. The soup tureen in the steam table with the chicken noodle soup was empty and floating up and out of its place. The corn chowder was half full but did not look very appetizing. We decided to move on to the entrees and have soup later in the meal. We went then to get utensils.

There are four areas at the end of buffet servers in this OCB where there are utensils. The first one that we came to was completely empty. The next was also empty. The  same with the third, and the fourth was mostly empty with a few forks, knives, and teaspoons still there. Before going any further, I looked at what was out on the buffet to eat. The roast beef was blood red and nearly raw. The turkey was gone. The ham was there. The steak - which here is cooked in the kitchen and brought out to the steam table where it is set under a cover to continue to cook to more than well done, was running out. There was fried chicken, baked chicken, baby back ribs (which I have liked but may have been the source of my illness on my last two visits to the "other" OCB so I was avoiding those), and there were fried shrimp which resembled tiny, hard, dark brown balls. Again, I was regretting having walked through the door to this OCB and again suggested to my wife that we leave before taking anything. She now was inclined to go but said, "let's just deal with what there is." She also asked why did I expect this dinner at the Levittown OCB to be any different from all of the other nights that we had been here in the past. She was surprised when I said that I had hoped that it would have improved. We stayed.

She was not quite feeling that we made the right choice to remain, though, when she then spotted a woman manager and went over to ask politely if more chicken noodle soup was coming out and if more silverware was coming from the dishwasher. The  manager responded to my wife with an attitude of why are you bothering me. Her snapped answers with a scowl on her face were "There is plenty of silverware out!", pointing to the few utensils left at the end of the buffet server - and - "It will be more than 20 minutes before that soup comes out!" Then she turned her back and walked away. Somehow my wife had expected a much different answer and attitude - maybe something like this, said with a smile: "I'm sorry. There is soup cooking right now in the kitchen and we will get it out as soon as it is ready - though that may take about twenty minutes. And we will have more silverware out right away - thank you for letting us know!" But no, that did not happen. My wife was to blame for asking for soup and utensils. Sorry that we bothered you, Ms. Manager!

As it turned out more utensils never did come out the entire night, and the soup actually did come out about fifteen minutes later - the chicken soup that was brought out consisted of nearly raw and raw celery and carrots, a few noodles, no sign of actual chicken, all in boiling water that had a hint of chicken flavor.

We took food from the buffet and by doing that we made a commitment with that to stay - and we did stay. We don't overfill plates of food. We both take a portion of one entree and side dishes, and when that has been eaten go back for more. As a result we have plates for each course that in most buffets will be taken away as soon as we are finished with them. There was still no sign of anyone working in the dining room where we were sitting and as a result our plates were stacking up on the table as were the plates on the tables of other guests dining in this area. Almost a half hour into the meal a young man made an appearance in the cleaning area at the side of the dining room. He went over with a wet cloth to clean a table, ignoring all of the tables with guests and their piled dishes. The people about to sit at that table after he "washed" it down told him that it was still dirty. He said that it wasn't and wiped once more with the dirty dishcloth. They reluctantly sat down. He then disappeared again. Every so often he would make another appearance. I decided that I would wait to see how long it would take him to come over to us with our dishes piling higher and higher. When he did come to our table finally, he smiled and asked us how we were. I could not resist making the comment, "Well, you finally decided to come out of hiding and come over to us." He laughed at that. I was was not laughing. He was about to walk away when he asked if there was anything that he could get us - I pointed to the empty napkin dispenser on the table - the last few napkins in it having been used by us to wash the table - and told him that we needed it filled please. It was obvious that it was empty. "Oh," he said, "is it empty? I can fill it for you." He went off and came back with more napkins. We did not see him again for some time.

While he was not paying any attention to the tops of the tables all around - some with people at them and dishes still left untouched by him right up until the people left - he was not paying any attention - nor was any other employee to the carpeted floors that were piled with dirt and food under each table and in the aisles. Of course, people drop things, but at most buffets, someone comes over with a dust pan or floor sweeper and try to pick up what can be picked up before the table fills again. This never happens at the Levittown Old Country Buffet. The floors are never clean. I have heard comments here of "disgusting". And that, among other reasons is why we travel to the other Old Country Buffet which generally has been cleaner. The employees here are another reason that we go there. Our table server here being one example.

We went up to the carving area - which here is just the end of one of the steam tables. The woman that was carving - if she spoke English - was seemingly going out of her way to pretend she didn't. I suspect that she didn't speak English - which is fine for those customers who speak Spanish, but the number here that don't were having to point for her to get what they wanted. As she cut a small slice of steak, I recalled that really nice steak that you served the woman on the television show - how it was cooked as she asked for it - and how you were concerned that it was right. I have never been in an Old Country Buffet like that. I have had that happen in a Ryans - one in particular in Virginia - where the grill chef out on grill made sure the steak was cooked just as I asked for it and even brought it over to my table when it was done. That is the exception - not the rule - and I don't expect anyone to bring anything to me at my table - that was just an added nicety which has happened at that one Virginia Ryans more than once. It has never happened at an Old Country Buffet and with the usual language barrier of the employees who most need to understand what each customer is asking for - it is not going to happen when you have to point and even then maybe (or maybe not) get what you would like.

This is a location that you need to go undercover to. Come on a weeknight or a weekend night. What you will find will be just what I have described here. On this night they did not run out of any items - though that is common at this location and if, for example, an entree runs out, it is not replaced with an entree dish - it is often replaced with another tray of rolls. On one night here in the past there were three trays of rolls on the buffet where entrees had been earlier. Of all of the buffets that I have dined in, and those amount to many, many, many buffets, this ranks as one of the worst - and is certainly the worst of the many Buffets, Inc. buffets that I have been to in a number of states.

As we were completing the meal, still with dirty dishes piled on our table as well as other guest's tables around us, we were discussing our experience during this meal. As we are talking I am watching a little boy around four years old walking around the buffet table with a plate in his hand and a spoon in his mouth who is putting the spoon down on the food trays and then back into his mouth. No adults are around. My wife asks what I am watching and I tell her a little boy at the buffet server. She asks if it is, as she put it, "the plate licker". With that, it was time to leave, regretting that we had come. I always tip at a buffet. I did not leave a tip on this night. I looked at other tables - no one else left this guy a tip, and rightly so, as he did nothing to earn the money that you were paying him, much less get a tip.

Sir, you need to know what goes on in your restaurants. That will not happen if the boss or any of the "suits" walk through the door. When that happens everything is always good. No, you were on the right track with being "undercover" but not with cameras following you.

Is every one of your restaurants and employees like this? Absolutely not. But more than you realize are. So I got to go "undercover" on this night as a customer. Every meal that I have at a buffet I am undercover.  I am writing to you here - openly for all of my readers - and there are thousands of readers - to let you know what I observed "undercover". While there, I was looking for the changes that you spoke about on television that were to come. There has been no change in the frustrating cash register experience. The same register and the same charge card machine are there as they always have had. There was certainly no sign of the old favorite food items that have been taken away in the past several years that you said you were bringing back. And most importantly there has been no change, at least here, in attitude by management or employees.

I admit that the consolation to this meal was that afterward, I did not get ill as I did on my last two occasions to dine at an OCB. And that was the only good thing about the night. Will I go back to Levittown OCB? No. I may go back to Bay Shore though I do so with trepidation - though I have had hundreds meals there including Thanksgiving dinner in the past four years that I felt perfectly fine afterward. But when the best buffet manager that we have ever encountered was fired from there about a year and a half ago (one who cared, ran a tight ship, and welcomed every guest as if he were welcoming you to dinner at his home), things have definitely gone down hill there as well, but that is another letter that I have yet to write. There is an email address in the column on the right at which I can be reached if you wish to respond privately and perhaps that will legitimatize who is responding through the return email address. I suspect some will try to respond with comments posing as you that will not really be you - and those will not be published.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

Sincerely,

Art of the Buffet