THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601300472
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BROWN H. CARPENTER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 158 lines
CALL THEM buffets, smorgasbords, pig-out palaces: Restaurants where you help yourself are dishing up a trend.
Are we nostalgically celebrating the school cafeteria? The military chow line?
Chances are, you never dined on Peking duck or sushi during 11th-grade lunch, or were served such luscious slabs of rare roast beef by an Army mess sergeant.
These delicacies and more await you in Hampton Roads cafeterias and buffet restaurants.
There are traditional meat-and-potatoes places, such as Carolina Cookin', Old Country Buffet and Morrison's, and all-you-can-eat cornucopias like Asia Garden in Virginia Beach and Golden Corral, a steakhouse chain riding the buffet wagon.
The National Restaurant Association lumps ``cafeterias'' and ``buffets'' in the same genre, although there are some differences.
In a cafeteria line (remember those school lunches), you select your food by pointing at it. Servers behind the counter scoop up the portions; your bill reflects the amount of food you've chosen.
At a buffet, you pay a set price and eat all you want. But no doggy bags, please.
Such establishments have been around since the 1920s. But recently an additional line has been added to the mix: the restaurant association dubs it ``home-meal replacement.'' It combines the cafeteria concept with fast-food efficiency on a menu that's familiar and abreast of nutrition trends.
``American families are becoming more reliant on having someone else prepare food for them,'' explains Wendy Webster, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based association. ``The home-meal replacement category does a lot for the guilt factor. It's the type of food we'd prepare at home if we had the time.''
Two chains pushing this culinary genre are luring customers with poultry, hot off the rotisserie: Kenny Rogers Roasters and Boston Market foods are seasoned with herbs and spices but no salt.
``This is the fast food of the '90s,'' says John Weithas, managing partner of the group that owns Kenny Rogers Roasters at 5257 Providence Road in Virginia Beach and a second store in Newport News.
``People are sick of fast food, sick of pizza. Until now there hasn't been much of an alternative,'' Weithas says.
He says prices are in the fast-food league, if the food is not. One roast chicken, three large side dishes and four muffins cost $12.99 and will feed a family of four.
Kenny Rogers' birds are cooked on a huge rotating spit and served with herbs or barbecue sauce. The side dishes, also made fresh daily, range from comfort food (mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese) to modern, low-calorie fare (pasta salad, steamed vegetables).
If the menu fuses nutrition and childhood memories, the service combines the cafeteria with the fast-food outlet. Customers may walk through the line or order via a drive-up window.
Weithas and his partners plan to establish a half-dozen restaurants in Hampton Roads within a couple of years, he says.
``The fast-food companies have been pushing the envelope in getting food to where the people are,'' says the restaurant association's Webster.
Boston Market offers ``fresh, convenient meals to eat in or take out,'' says Mike Reeves, director of marketing for Platinum Rotisserie Corp. of Winston-Salem, N.C.
Platinum recently opened the first Boston Market in Hampton Roads, near Coliseum Mall in Hampton. Five more local outlets are in the works, and the company plans to have 80 Boston Market restaurants in Virginia and five other states by the end of the year.
``We have no fried food, nothing is microwaved,'' Reeves says. ``And there are no alcoholic beverages.''
Kenny Rogers and Boston Market are similar in menu offerings and prices. Both offer sandwiches and chicken pot pies, as well as bigger meals. Both also serve turkey.
Boston Market - formerly Boston Chicken - recently added ham and meatloaf to its menu. Kenny Rogers has added baby-back ribs. FOR THE BIG EATER
While the chicken chains tout nutritious fare at reasonable prices, some of the area's buffet restaurants proudly cater to gargantuan appetites.
At the newer Golden Corrals, you can help yourself to carved beef, Cajun catfish, lightly steamed broccoli, real mashed potatoes, fresh salad, pizza, pasta, bread and . . . rotisserie chicken, all for less than $7. Dessert's included too. For $6 or so more, add steak, cooked to order.
``Demographics are changing,'' says Doreen Thiess, administrative manager of BOTH Inc., which franchises several Golden Corrals in Hampton Roads. ``Everybody is working. Everybody in the family can find something they like here. We have people who come in every night for dinner.''
Many Chinese restaurants traditionally have supplemented their regular menus with buffets. ``But nothing like this,'' says Roger Wang, manager of the Asia Garden at 1824 Laskin Road in Virginia Beach, where the food is a virtual map of the Far East, and selections from the menu are secondary to the buffet.
Pick from three to four types of Korean kimchi (spicy hot, pickled veggies), two soups, Japanese sushi, Chinese cuisine from Szechuan to Taiwan, Vietnamese egg-rolls, Philippine lumpia. A Japanese grill is in one corner, a Mongolian barbecue in the other. No Thai? ``We're working on it,'' Wang says.
Among other local restaurants emphasizing the Oriental buffet is China Bowl on North Military Highway in Norfolk, where even Peking duck is available in the evening.
``The trend in America is going in this direction,'' manager Mindy Chang says of buffet dining. ``It's good for people who don't know Chinese food. They can pick what they like.''
And as much as they like.
One of the pioneers in the local all-you-can eat business, Capt. George's Seafood restaurants, has two outlets in Virginia Beach. The first Capt. George's opened in Hampton in 1976 and the second at 1956 Laskin Road in Virginia Beach in 1982. A third opened in Pungo two years later.
``We still have plenty of customers,'' says Marcey Jones, a spokeswoman for Capt. George's. ``The tourists know about us.''
The restaurant charges $22.95 for dinner with Alaskan crab legs, $15.95 without the crab, Jones says. Crabless diners can still stack their plates nightly with steamed shrimp, oysters and at least three kinds of broiled fish, including salmon. ILLUSTRATION: JANET SHAUGHNESSY/The Virginian-Pilot
Graphic
HEARTY-EATING PLACES
Here are the addresses of some buffet lines and cafeterias in
Hampton Roads:
Boston Market: 2034 Coliseum Drive, Hampton, 838-0300. Several
outlets should be established on the southside this year.
Kenny Rogers Roasters: 5257 Providence Road, Virginia Beach,
467-4009, and 100 Arthur Way, Newport News, 872-0345. More are in
the works.
Golden Corral: Four of this chain's local steak houses have been
modernized into gigantic buffets - at 1525 General Booth Blvd.,
Virginia Beach, 428-7608; 101 Volvo Parkway, Chesapeake, 549-2819;
1436 Kempsville Road, Virginia Beach; 467-3424, and 1123 W. Mercury
Blvd., Hampton, 826-5510.
Carolina Cookin': 6567 College Park Square, Virginia Beach,
523-4529; 719 E. Little Creek Road, Norfolk, 480-0297; 3750 Virginia
Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach, 486-5780.
Old Country Buffet: 1952 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, 428-3907;
1412 Greenbrier Parkway, Chesapeake, 366-5586; 4300 Portsmouth
Blvd., Chesapeake, 488-4373; and 14346 Warwick Blvd., Newport News,
874-0253.
Morrison's Cafeteria: Military Circle, Norfolk, 461-2477;
Chesapeake Square Mall, Chesapeake, 465-5661; and 1532 Laskin Road,
Virginia Beach, 422-4755.
Morrison's Fresh Cooking: The venerable cafeteria chain ventures
into rotisserie chicken. Lynnhaven Mall, Virginia Beach, 631-1081;
Greenbrier Mall, Chesapeake, 420-1385.
Asia Garden: 1824 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, 422-5999.
China Bowl: 525 N. Military Highway, Norfolk, 461-5588.
Capt. George's Seafood Restaurant: 1956 Laskin Road, Virginia
Beach, 428-3494; 2272 Old Pungo Ferry Road, Virginia Beach,
721-3463; and 2710 W. Mercury Blvd., Hampton, 826-1435.
Captain John's Seafood Co.: 4616 Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia
Beach, 499-7755. Another cap'n joins the competition.
by CNB