Buffets are as large a part of coastal casinos as slot machines, player clubs, and blackjack tables. Every day, thousands of people pay cheap prices to eat egg rolls, crab legs, hush dogs, or chocolate chip cookies as much as possible.

Nearly 22 percent of people who visit Boomtown in Biloxi said they came to the casino for a buffet. The percentage of people who answered that they were coming to the Back Bay casino came in second place with 19 percent. "It's our only amenities," Soldo said. "We have no hotel, no spa."

Ranked the best buffet in South America by Sun Herald readers for the third year in a row, Boomtown serves between 65 and 70,000 customers per month at the buffet. Free meals account for 26 percent of business. Despite the number of customers paying between $5.99 and $12.99 per meal, Boomtown Buffet is a break-even operation that pays for food and for 86 chefs and chefs. "We make a living in empty spaces," Soldo said. "The food is just a chauffeur. And the chauffeur is related to gambling money."

Casinos are willing to break the balance or accept small profits because buffets are the key to attracting slot players, who make up the majority of their gambling income. This has led to continued competition for casinos to upgrade their buffets and offer more food and cooking stations for customers to order dishes.

These upgrades aren't cheap. In April 2001, Biloxi's Vorizi expanded The Buffet at a cost of $8 million. This spring, Capri Island in Biloxi renovated and improved Calypso's Buffet at a cost of $2.2 million. And once the casino has made any kind of improvement, competitors are waiting to copy what's working.

"Like everyone else, we visit different casinos to see what our competitors cook," said Scott Hickson, Calypso's manager. "There's a really nice get-together with chefs and restaurant managers who always check in with each other. They'll bring their family out to different buffets."

Buffet prices range from $2.99 for breakfast specials to $14.99 for a seafood-heavy smorgasbord. In comparison, a black tilapia lunch with a salad, a rice curry roll, a lemonade with turnip vegetables and rolls, and a cheesecake costs $11.96 in tax at the Piccadilly Cafeteria at Edgewater Mall in Biloxi.

"We don't really worry about casinos," said Mike Satley, the general manager of O'Charlie's in Biloxi. "A lot of people come to casinos, gamble, and travel here once. As long as they make one trip here, we're happy." Satley said a casino buffet is just another dining option for coastal residents.

"Sometimes I want KFC, sometimes I want Taco Bell, sometimes I want to go into a restaurant and wait," he said. "I see a lot of people playing cards at our restaurant casinos."

The number of guests at the casino buffet is tremendous. About 115,000 people eat at two buffets at the Grand Casino Biloxi every month, which is much more than enough to fill all the seats at the Superdome and Hattiesburg's M.M. Roberts Stadium.

Before working as Calypso's manager, Hickson worked at Montana's, a family buffet restaurant off the coast of U.S. 49 in Gulfport. "When we welcomed 700 to 800 guests a night there, we were devastated," he said. Calypso's average number of guests per night is higher than that, Hickson said.

It definitely takes a lot of food to fill that many hungry customers. View Lvidge's Buffet, which was recently named the Best Coast by Casino Player magazine readers, spends about $700,000 a month on food, said George Goldhoff, vice president of food and beverages.

"A lot of times we buy from local merchants," Goldhoff said, noting that casinos buy huge amounts of food every month from Desport Bakery, quality seafood and Gulf Coast Produce.

Every day, the chefs and chefs spend hours baking, frying, roasting, and baking all kinds of food known to mankind. In one kitchen, they produce about the same amount of food that the Gulfport School District makes in 10 schools.

Cooking is a day-round process. At breakfast, the chefs are preparing things for lunch. At lunch, the chefs are preparing dinner. It takes different assembly lines of speed to meet the customer's needs.

"We wouldn't have been able to get any food out if we didn't do it in advance," said Mike Leg, the executive chef of Boomtown, on a recent Friday afternoon.

It was just after 3 p.m., and the chefs were busy boiling crab claws, preparing pasta shells and green beans for the steamer. The bread rack was ready to go into the oven.

Then there are the problems with all the dirty dishes, bowls, glasses, and cutlery. Frank Burgess, the food and beverage director at Casino Magic Biloxi, said on average that the buffet should wash 4,200 dinner plates and side dishes.

"We have a dishwasher that doesn't stop," said Soldo of Boomtown. "We stop every two hours to drain and clean, but that's it.  온라인카지노사이트