Revealed: Buffet staff share all-you-can-eat horror stories

"I once saw someone use their shirt as a bag and filled it with chicken wings," wrote one. Photo / Getty Images

There's something about an unlimited abundance of food that makes people unleash their inner animal.

Buffet workers and customers have taken to Reddit to share their most harrowing horror stories of all-you-can-eat restaurants.

"I worked at an all-you-can-eat country buffet in South Carolina. I once served a family who, whenever they had finished with what they were going to eat, would scrape their plate and use it again.

"Scrape their plates... onto the floor next to their chairs. So next to each chair, there was a pile of chicken bones, crab legs, mashed potatoes, remnants of baked potatoes," wrote one horrified worker.

Another shared their pizza parlour shocker: "I worked at a pizza parlour that offered a lunch buffet of endless pizza from 11am until 3pm. We once had a man come in who served himself a tower of pizzas and stayed from the beginning to the very end to make sure he got his money's worth."

As you might expect, things didn't end well.

"Well, his body didn't appreciate being stuffed like a pinata of pizza. He got up waddled fast to the bathroom and left a trail of sh*t behind him," shared another.

Another divulged a stomach-churning anecdote about a finger-food faux pas.

"I once went to a chinese food buffet where another man in the queue was grabbing chicken wings to eat while standing in the line, but putting his chewed-up bones back in the buffet tray," they shared.

Another former buffet employee wrote about a customer's "money-saving" hack:

"I worked at a buffet where it was fairly common for people to gorge themselves, then vomit in the bathroom and start eating again so that they could 'get their money's worth.'"

And in case you weren't already disgusted enough...

"I worked in a buffet restaurant where people do disgusting things like sneeze in the food or just poke their fingers in things like sauces to taste them," wrote another.

Have you ever wished you'd brought a Tupperware to a buffet so you could sneak some leftovers home? Well, one customer came up with a makeshift alternative:

"I once saw someone using their shirt as a bag and filled it with bbq chicken wings," wrote a former buffet restaurant employee.

And in what might be the most revolting tale of all ...

"I know of a Chinese buffet which was shut down for a health code violation, because an employee was cutting veggies while taking a sh*t. To this day I still wonder if that means dude brought a bucket into the kitchen or veggies into the sh*tter and I honestly don't know which is worse."