Red Lobster's All-You-Can-Eat Deals

Pay one price, eat as much as you want. The early all-you-can-eat buffets were loss leaders, meaning the establishment lost money, but they did it because it brought people in which paid off in others ways. That works in a casino, but when the idea spread to restaurants, management had to carefully keep up with the economics and adjust prices to avoid losses. That's important, because people can and will eat an astonishing amount of food. Most buffets don't have much in the way of expensive seafood. 

Then there's Red Lobster, which offered all-you-can-eat crab legs and then was astonished that they lost money. So what did they do? They switched from crab legs to endless shrimp on limited days. Then the days went unlimited. When that lost money, they did everything else they could before they rolled back on the shrimp. Red Lobster is still there, but the chain is a shadow of what it once was. However, most folks agree that it wasn't the shrimp that did them in, it was a leveraged buyout by venture capitalists who pulled some pretty skeevy tricks to make a quick profit. That doesn't always work the way you think it will.