{"id":255389,"date":"2024-08-19T10:05:03","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T10:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/19\/rumor-the-buffet-at-bellagio-to-close-for-food-hall\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:12:07","slug":"rumor-the-buffet-at-bellagio-to-close-for-food-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/19\/rumor-the-buffet-at-bellagio-to-close-for-food-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumor: The Buffet at Bellagio to Close for Food Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n \"Scott <\/a>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

A longtime fixture on the Las Vegas Strip, The Buffet at Bellagio, is rumored to be closing.<\/p>\n

The buffet will be replaced by a (wait for it) food hall, as has been the law in Las Vegas since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Casino buffets are famous for being money-losers, so it\u2019s no surprise The Buffet at Bellagio will close. No official announcement about the closure has been made yet, but give it a minute.<\/p>\n

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The word \u201cbuffet\u201d comes from the Old French \u201cbufet,\u201d meaning \u201cstool.\u201d 1) We are not making this up. 2) There\u2019s a chance this is the funniest thing in the world.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to our friend Corey Levitan, who also writes for Casino.org<\/a>, at least 10 of the Strip\u2019s 18 buffets have closed permanently. We are not a math person, but we can confirm it\u2019s a metric hell-ton.<\/p>\n

Closed buffets include the ones at Aria, Mirage (the entire resort closed), Paris, Treasure Island, Harrah\u2019s, Horseshoe (previously Bally\u2019s, remember the Sterling Brunch?), M Resort, Planet Hollywood, Mandalay Bay, The Strat and Flamingo, among others.<\/p>\n

Which is a shame, because about three of those were actually good.<\/p>\n

Casinos were looking for an excuse to get rid of buffets, beloved but expensive loss leaders (Caesars Entertainment famously said its buffets in Las Vegas lost an average of $3 million a year each), for years before COVID, then the pandemic provided the perfect cover.<\/p>\n

Food courts, sometimes called \u201cfood halls,\u201d are the new Las Vegas buffets. Oh, Miracle Mile Shops calls its under-construction food court, Miracle Eats, a \u201cfood collective.\u201d No, really. We can\u2019t convince them to stop.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re sure Bellagio, operated by MGM Resorts, will curate a fine collection of \u201caccessible\u201d food concepts for its new food court.<\/p>\n

We also trust the hours of operation at the food court will be normal, as opposed to the half-assed hours for the buffet. On Saturday and Sunday, the buffet is open 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., but Monday through Friday, hours are 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. No dinner at a buffet? That was a pretty big red flag Bellagio\u2019s buffet\u2019s days were numbered.<\/p>\n

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If you could just not ask how we got a photo inside the Bellagio buffet after midnight when it closes at 8:00 p.m., that\u2019d be great.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you\u2019re a buffet person, there are still some reasonably good buffets in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace is the undisputed champ, but it\u2019s not cheap (you get what you pay for). Also very good is the A.Y.C.E. (all you can eat) Buffet at Palms. It\u2019s prices just jumped up recently.<\/p>\n

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Prices going up a smidge at the Palms buffet. Loss leaders aren\u2019t a thing in Vegas anymore. (h\/t @Pennys4Vegas<\/a>) pic.twitter.com\/DF9WsYEKgv<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) August 11, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There was a rumor the Wicked Spoon Buffet (at Cosmo) was closing, but MGM Resorts reached out to put the kibosh on that one. It\u2019s pretty clear now our tipster got wind of the impending Bellagio buffet closure and mistook it for Wicked Spoon, as both resorts are under the MGM Resorts umbrella now.<\/p>\n

Other buffets: Luxor, Wynn, Excalibur, Westgate, South Point, Main Street, MGM Grand and Rampart in Summerlin.<\/p>\n

We sort of did the list that way just to make our public relations friends at Wynn Las Vegas squirm about being wedged between Luxor and Excalibur.<\/p>\n

We reached out to MGM Resorts about the Bellagio buffet news, but haven\u2019t heard back yet.<\/p>\n

A little housekeeping you don\u2019t care about, but should.<\/p>\n

The tip about the closure of the Bellagio buffet was submitted to us via Twitter direct message at 10:11 p.m., August 18, 2024. We immediately headed to Bellagio for photos of the buffet, which we somehow have never visited or photographed in more than 11 years of blogging. Our friend Las Vegas Locally<\/a> Tweeted the item at 11:59 p.m. on August 18, 2024. We Tweeted it<\/a> at 12:30 a.m., August 19, 2024. So, he technically scooped us, which is really annoying. He, however, did not include the fact a food court will replace the buffet, and he also doesn\u2019t have a blog (Twitter can\u2019t really be monetized), so technically, we still win. Fine, it\u2019s a tie. Yes, this matters. It matters because we try to give credit where it\u2019s due, unlike the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which gets its information from Twitter but never acknowledges virtually all its stories are stolen from social media. The Las Vegas Review-Journal believes a social media post isn\u2019t legitimate media, so no attribution to the original source of a story is required. They\u2019re wrong. They also sometimes claim they got a story from somewhere other than social media. In most cases, that\u2019s a blatant and obvious lie. They use social media as a free news feed, confirming stories and presenting them as original reporting. It\u2019s horseshit and they should be embarrassed. In this case, we legitimately did not get this story from Twitter, we got it from a source who also shared the information with Las Vegas Locally. We\u2019re still giving a hat tip to Las Vegas Locally because he was the first to share it on Twitter. The whole situation serves as a reminder that ethics matter, professional courtesy isn\u2019t dead and also the Las Vegas Review-Journal sucks. We all deserve better. It\u2019s the \u201cpaper of record.\u201d Yes, in quotation marks, but still.<\/p>\n

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A meme is worth a thousand words.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anyway, the Bellagio buffet is closing and will be replaced by a food court. Timeline unknown.<\/p>\n

Buffets are sort of a holdover from an era when Las Vegas was trying to be \u201ceverything to everyone.\u201d It was also a time when gambling revenue subsidized just about everything at a resort. Shows, restaurants, the whole nine. At one time, gambling revenue even made it possible for guests to park for free. Crazy but true.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n