The Largest Buffet In America Is Nestled In Rural Pennsylvania

Pretend you didn't see the headline and ask yourself: where would you assume the largest buffet in America would be? Probably somewhere like the Caesars Palace buffet in Vegas, right? Not only is it a place devoted to hedonistic excess, but it's full of casinos, which have historically featured buffets (although they've been going away in recent years). By the same token, maybe there would be some holdover from Atlantic City's glory days that still boasted an all-you-can-eat buffet fit for the gods. Or maybe it would be in Texas — the Texas State Fair is a monument to culinary excess, so a giant buffet seems like the sort of thing the state would do.

But no, the biggest buffet in America isn't in any of those places. It's tucked away in a small town in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a county known as the historic home of the Amish and the Pennsylvania Dutch. It's called the Shady Maple Smorgasbord, and it boasts over 200 feet of buffet space. But if it sounds like the sort of restaurant a wealthy Pennsylvanian might build in a monumental feat of scrapple-induced hubris, Shady Maple's origins are more humble than you might think.

Under the swaying boughs of the maple tree in their front yard, Mr. and Mrs. Martin, the parents of Shady Maple proprietor Miriam Weaver, ran a farm stand. When Weaver and her husband took over the business in 1970, they partnered with IGA, a chain of grocery stores that, despite providing branding and logistics, allows for franchisees to operate their own stores with relatively limited oversight. Over the course of a decade, their business had expanded from a small grocery store to a ten-register operation with its own bakery and warehouse.

An expansion in 1982 allowed for the Weavers to add a cafeteria, which initially seated 100 people before turning into an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord that sat 300. The restaurant was an immediate success, routinely commanding hours-long wait times — which is no mean feat in rural Pennsylvania!.Today, after a series of remodels and renovations, the smorgasbord can serve up to 1200 customers.

Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine is an interesting choice to base any buffet around, let alone the biggest buffet in America. The Pennsylvania Dutch were, despite the name, a demographic of devoutly Protestant German immigrants who favored various degrees of simple living and conservatism, ranging from the assimilated "Fancy Dutch" to the less integrated "Plain Dutch" of the Amish and the Mennonites. Accordingly, their cuisine is filling, but generally not considered an explosion of flavor worthy of a foodie destination.

But clearly, there's something to be said for simplicity. The food served at Shady Maple is straightforward and no-frills — the kind that brings literal meaning to the phrase "meat and potatoes," with all sorts of roast, smoked, or fried meat accompanied by understated sides of potatoes or vegetables. Despite the simplicity, Shady Maple attracts over a million visitors a year. Perhaps it's a matter of quality ingredients; perhaps it's the modest price point, with an all-you-can-eat dinner going for $23 a head; perhaps the shoofly pie just slaps that hard. In any case, in a world that grows increasingly homogenized, it's great to see such a unique establishment thrive.