After a wave of restaurant closures and weaker-than-expected visitor numbers, Las Vegas could use some good news.

From once-packed dining rooms on the Strip to smaller neighborhood favorites off-Strip, the city’s food scene has seen a slowdown in 2024 as travel spending cools and operational costs rise.

But now, a piece of old Vegas may be making a comeback.

The legendary Carnival World Buffet at the Rio, long considered one of Las Vegas’s most iconic all-you-can-eat experiences, is reportedly being revived under new ownership.

The return of a true buffet — not a rebranded “food hall” or limited “market concept” — could signal a nostalgic turn for the city’s hospitality industry at a time when it’s searching for ways to reconnect with value-conscious visitors.

The Las Vegas Strip is home to dozens of hotels, each with multiple restaurants.

Shutterstock

All-you-can-eat: once a symbol of Vegas excess

Buffets were the cornerstone of the Las Vegas experience practically since the beginning. The purpose of the $10 all-you-can-eat meal was simple: keep gamblers inside casinos longer.

The Rio’s Carnival World Buffet, which opened in the 1990s, set a new standard for scale and variety. Its 300-plus dishes, carving stations, and global food sections made it a destination in its own right.

At its peak, Carnival World Buffet could serve thousands of guests a day. Visitors lined up for crab legs, prime rib, and frothy desserts. It was quintessential Las Vegas — big, bold, and over the top, just as visitors had come to expect.

But by the late 2010s, well before the pandemic, even the modest buffet model was under stress.

The history of the Las Vegas buffet:

  • 1946: The first Las Vegas buffet, El Rancho Vegas’s “Buckaroo Buffet,” opened as an all-night $1 meal meant to keep guests gambling.
  • 1950s–1970s: Buffets spread across the Strip, offering inexpensive comfort food to attract middle-class tourists.
  • 1980s–1990s: Megaresorts like the Rio, Mirage, and Bellagio elevated the concept with carving stations, international cuisine, and luxury ingredients.
  • 2000s: Buffets became tourist attractions — with lines wrapping around the corner for weekend seafood nights.
  • 2020s: The pandemic nearly wiped out buffets, as health restrictions, inflation, and new dining trends made the model hard to sustain.

Vegas buffets face economic pressures, costs, and shrinking demand

By the late 2010s, Las Vegas buffets were facing mounting economic and operational pressure. The all-you-can-eat model — once a cornerstone of the Vegas experience — had become harder to sustain in an era of rising food costs, wage increases, and shifting consumer expectations.

Food inflation had a particularly sharp impact.

According to the U.S Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, wholesale food prices rose more than 15% between 2018 and 2020, and premium ingredients like seafood and imported meats — staples of the Carnival World Buffet’s draw — saw even steeper spikes. Labor costs followed suit as casinos competed to hire and retain cooks, servers, and cleaning staff amid a tightening job market.

Maintaining an operation like Carnival World’s 300-item buffet became untenable. The Rio buffet could seat over 700 guests, but the service required dozens of cooks and attendants per shift, and relied on a continuous flow of diners to stay profitable.

Related: Las Vegas Strip’s oldest casino losing iconic restaurant

Consumer behavior was already changing before the pandemic took a toll, too: visitors wanted fresher, more curated experiences, not to mention celebrity chefs, rather than industrial-scale food service.

By 2019, many properties were already scaling back buffet hours, cutting seafood nights, or experimenting with pay-by-weight dining — think food court at Whole Foods.

Caesars, MGM Resorts, and Station Casinos each reduced buffet operations to focus on more profitable à la carte venues. What had once been a marketing loss leader meant to keep gamblers in seats no longer made economic sense when most visitors were spending less time gambling and more time dining, or attending music or sporting events.

People love buffets, and while the fancy ones are great, a mid-priced buffet would actually be something special now.

Daniel Kline, travel expert and Co-Editor in Chief, TheStreet

Pandemic was last nail in coffin for Vegas buffets

When Covid hit in March 2020, the buffet model was among the first casualties. Communal serving stations, shared utensils, and long lines were incompatible with new health and safety guidelines. The Rio shuttered its Carnival World Buffet, initially calling it a temporary closure.

But like most of the city’s buffets, it never came back. Even after restrictions eased, the math didn’t work: Food prices were up, staffing was tight, and demand for large-format dining was down.

The Rio’s new owners ultimately converted the space into Canteen Food Hall in 2024, following the same trend seen across the Strip — swapping buffets for smaller, more flexible concepts that offer better margins and less waste.

That’s why the news of a potential Carnival World Buffet revival has generated such buzz. If successful, it would be one of the first major buffets to return since the pandemic and could tap into both nostalgia and pent-up demand for classic Vegas value.

The concept will bring back signature elements like international stations and all-day dining, with updated pricing and modern safety protocols, as reported on Casino.org.

It remains to be seen whether the new model will succeed. And success will depend partly on whether Las Vegas can recapture the pre-pandemic magic that combined affordability with indulgence, making experiences in Sin City unlike those visitors can find anywhere else.

(The Arena Group will earn a commission if you book a trip.)

Please make a free appointment with TheStreet’s Travel Agent Partner, Postcard Travel, or email Amy Post at amypost@postcardtravelplanning.com or call or text her at 386-383-2472.

Related: Las Vegas Strip casino signs huge rock band for residency return