University of Virginia Library

Human Garbage Cans Ravage Eateries

By LAURIE GOODMAN

The table is piled with
plates, covered with the debris
of uneaten food. The swollen
occupants of the table gaze at
each other with glazed eyes
and with a great heave, push
away their plates and reel,
staggering, from the table. Is
this a typical Roman orgy? Or
perhaps the famous eating
scene from the movie "Tom
Jones?" No, indeed, It's what's
happening just about every
night of the week at
Charlottesville restaurants.
Charlottesville has become a
glutton's paradise, with one
all-you-can-eat dinner after
another.

Epitomized by the "I can't
believe I ate the whole thing!"
philosophy, the art of stuffing
oneself is fast becoming
another national pastime,
While the supreme goal never
changes, the food and
atmosphere varies greatly
among restaurants.

Howard Johnson's was one
of the first restaurants to
introduce the all-you-can-eat
idea last year. They serve
chicken on Monday night and
fish on Wednesday night. An
evening at one of these affairs
is spent in the true tradition of
greed and gluttony with tables
full of patrons sucking up
plates full of food. Emily
Post's etiquette guidelines are
definitely ignored.

The Library Restaurant is
promoting a new University
tradition with its Monday night
spaghetti dinner. Last year,
when they offered a special
rate of $1 instead of the usual
$1.75, the crowds of ravenous
students overflowed the
restaurant and milled about on
Emmet Street for hours
waiting to get in.

Not about to be left out,
The Dutch Pantry has three
all-you-can-eat nights. They
serve chicken and dumplings
on Monday, fish on Tuesdays,
and spaghetti on Friday. The
atmosphere is like a family
Sunday dinner with home-style
food being urged on you and
goodness, even the waitresses
are having fun! On Mondays,
they wear overalls to push
around their chuck wagons,
and Fridays, with red tights
and short skirts, they make
dinner a more dressy affair.

The Monday and Tuesday
night pizza smorgasbord at the
Pizza Hut is definitely for
those with iron stomaches.
Making a meal out of eating as
much pizza as possible is
bound to reveal animalistic
tendencies in even the most
reserved customers. To insure
getting a piece of pizza with
the proper combination of
gaseous ingredients, you would
be wise to take up a strategic
position at the serving counter
and ignore the jabbing elbows.
An employee at the Pizza Hut
says their smorgasbord has
"more personality than most
restaurant experiences." He
thinks that the crowd only
enhances the atmosphere and
said, "The more the merrier."

In a more sedate mood,
there is the all-you-can-eat
salad bar at That Steak Place.
This could be the only place in
town where the girls can outeat
the guys. The combinations
that go into creating these
salads are virtually infinite, and
many diners put so much
effort into making these
masterpieces that they regret
having to eat and destroy
them.

The seafood buffet at the
Monticello Hotel on Friday
nights is in a class by itself.
This is no common spread, but
an immense table piled with
gastronomical delights. True
gluttony is the criterion for
this feast. The atmosphere is
somewhat different in its
formality than the usual
finger-licking characteristics of
other all-you-can-eat dinners.
This appears to be one of the
last great Charlottesville social
events and students are not the
most frequent patrons.

While the amounts of food
being consumed on these
all-you-can-eat nights are
undoubtedly mind boggling, no
official records are available.
The manager at the Dutch
Pantry recalls an unofficial
record of 13 plates of chicken
and dumplings and 10 plates of
spaghetti. The diners at The
Library fell short of this mark,
as the manager there reported
that one patron had devoured a
mere 9 plates of spaghetti.

The managers of these
restaurants are pleased with the
results of these food
extravaganzas. The all-you-can-eat
nights are profitable,
not always in direct monetary
returns, but at least in
promoting good public
relations. The manager of the
Dutch Pantry is interested in
"giving the students a break"
and getting them into the
restaurant. An employee of the
Pizza Hut sees all-you-can-eat
offers as a device to fill up
usually slow nights.

The motive of the
restaurant in promoting these
unlimited meals is clear. But
what deep-seated aberration in
human nature makes gluttons
out of seemingly normal
people? For there is something
perverse about starving oneself
all day, to be able to stuff
oneself all night.

The clue, to this puzzle lies
in the American ethic of
"getting your money's worth."
The satisfaction comes from
actually having eaten all you
could possibly swallow, and
telling yourself you saved
money by eating food you
didn't even want.

Gluttony is becoming
addictive and the all-you-can
-eat businesses are fattening
themselves off the ever-growing
numbers of human garbage
cans.