For any kind of restaurant, food waste is a big problem that only continues to get worse. One might be tempted to believe that places with bottomless ordering like buffets would only accelerate the issue and increase its negative effects—but it is possible for an all-you-can-eat hibachi and sushi restaurant to avoid this universal dilemma while maintaining customer satisfaction. Okome House, a Japanese restaurant in Wake Forest that offers all-you-can-eat dining, is one of them.
Having opened on Feb. 3, Okome House offers a wide variety of hibachi, sushi, teriyaki and many other Japanese foods to serve their eager customers. Most notably, people were pulled in by the restaurant’s all-you-can-eat aspect. Buffets are nothing new, but unlike venues with self-serve buffet tables, Okome has a digital menu that sends orders to the kitchen every ten minutes, which are delivered straight to a customer’s table. While more advanced than typical all-you-can-eat places, these features do more for the restaurant than increase the wow-factor.
Luke Zhou, manager of the Okome’s location in Wake Forest, oversees quality control, the wellness of his staff and of course, customer satisfaction. He explains how rules and techniques like waste fees and regulated time between ordering help to limit food waste while simultaneously making things pleasing to diners.
“It discourages people from ordering too much when there’s a cost,” Zhou said. “By having the rules [at tables], they can be aware [of waste fees] before they order.”
Host, server and food runner Julia Seymour has seen that as long as customers are notified beforehand of how things work at Okome, most make sure they eat all of their food or are okay with having their leftovers added to their checks. However, there are bound to be those who get upset with paying extra, but Seymour knows it’s necessary.
“People are used to letting their food go to waste,” Seymour said. “But it is something that we need for this restaurant to work, or else people could just order and order and waste so much.”
Amphayphet Thongkheuang has first-hand consumer experience, having taken himself and his family to Okome House not long after they opened, and explains his thoughts on the restaurant’s policies. He believes the pricing matches the quality and quantity of food that is served, and the methods that they use to limit waste are effective as they discourage consumers from over-indulging.
“They allow you to take your food home, but they’ll charge you for it,” Thongkheuang said. “So people have got to be more conscious about how much they order.”
Laura Stiles, Wakefield High School’s AP Environmental Science and Earth Science teacher, has never been to Okome House, but thinks the idea of smaller portion sizes over a longer period is a good one. Stiles also believes taking these measures is the correct step towards lessening the enormous amount of food waste produced by restaurants in general.
She recognizes that waste doesn’t only come from customers ordering too much, but also from kitchens prepping food that might not even get ordered that day.
“When running a restaurant, how do you anticipate what people are going to want at any given time, and to make sure the food is ready without it being wasteful?” Stiles said. “If [Okome House] can be all-you-can-eat and still limit how much waste they generate, [their rules are] a fair way to go about it.”
When asked about rules that could be set for restaurants in general, Stiles compared the differences between how much food is served in the United States and in Europe.
“If you look at what a European will eat versus what we eat, ours are one and a half times, if not two times, more at a sitting,” Stiles said. “It doesn’t have to be quite that much.”
This is exactly how Okome services their customers with their portion sizes that give people more time to realize they’re full before they order more. Not only is the restaurant widely regarded as clean, aesthetically pleasing and staffed with helpful and attentive employees, but eating there is better for the environment. It may not seem like a lot, but waste adds up, and people tend to throw away perfectly good food because they got more full than they expected to. Those concerned with limiting wastefulness will find the regulations at Okome House to be far ahead of the game with their spaced-out, smaller portions, among other things.
“[Customers] have to realize the benefit of [these ways to limit waste] and feel like they’re walking away having done something good,” Stiles said. “Then, also that they feel full and like it was an overall good experience.”
