This is just one more Americanization of Chinese food. But the buffets are popular, low in price, and can be quite good. You can see what you're getting, and take just what you like. I can't help wondering, though, what happens to all the leftover food at the end of the evening. Anyway, that was quite an enterprising family you watched.
Crab legs are one of the most prized items on the Chinese buffet tables.
I hope we're not going to start seeing shoving matches at the crab leg stations. The most offensive customers I've seen are people who pick up food and put it back, or let their children play at the buffet. Hope I don't run into those crab leg fiends. Restaurants routinely price bottles of wine at double or even triple what they paid. This covers a lot of overhead, such as storage and breakage.