The End of the Breakfast Buffet

The End of the Breakfast Buffet
Due to COVID-19, the beloved self-serve travel perk is no more. Here’s what you can expect to wake up to instead

by Nadja Sayej Jun 15, 2020, 1:40pm EDT


There’s a particular pleasure to the travel ritual of waking up in crisp hotel sheets, meandering downstairs, and finding a fully stocked breakfast buffet splayed out before you.

Then there’s the exploratory lap to inspect the offerings: everything from chafing dishes of scrambled eggs and pancakes to, depending where you are in the world, soup, porridge, sushi, farm cheese, flatbread, noodles, and always, always miniature boxes of Kellogg’s cereal. Grab the tongs and fill your plate with a scone, a sliver of cantaloupe, and a curl of mortadella; pile a bowl with a mess of something hot and grainy, and top it with a sprinkle of sweet, salty, fishy, or all of the above. Your travel day has just started, and yet here it is, already made.

But now the breakfast buffet is, with all certainty, a thing of the past. In the early days of COVID-19’s spread, a number of the larger hotel chains like MGM Resorts, Hilton, Marriott, Four Seasons, and InterContinental temporarily stopped food service — including breakfast — altogether. Now, as the lodging industry strives to find more long-term COVID-conscious solutions, the buffet seems to be first on the chopping block.

Because though a bountiful platter of muffins or an artfully arranged display of cold cuts are alluring, such communal food presentations are also the perfect setting for spreading viruses. A team of scientists in Japan recently put one buffet under an ultraviolet light to illustrate how easily a virus can spread across tongs, drink pitchers, food tray lids, silverware, and glasses. Basically, all of it. ...........(more)

https://www.eater.com/2020/6/15/21288048/end-of-hotel-breakfast-buffet-travel-dining