The Restaurant Chain That's Famous For Its All-You-Can-Eat Salad Bar

When a restaurant offers an unlimited amount of food for a fixed price (the "all you can eat" concept), it is sure to build up a loyal and regular customer base. Buffet-style dining is perfect for those who love the freedom of building their own meal without quantity limitations or having to cook it themselves. Sizzler, a California-born steakhouse chain, has capitalized on this concept with their famous all-you-can-eat salad bar that's one of the most recognizable features of the restaurant's brand.

Before you imagine a boring lettuce bar with few delectable options, guess again. Sizzler's unlimited salad bar actually offers more than just salads. It includes a hot bar with tacos, wings, and pasta — all great options for a filling side dish, and all unlimited. The bar area also has a dessert section with soft serve ice cream. On the salad side, you can build your own salad and hack it with our creative tips, or choose from the restaurant's pre-prepared seasonal lineup. The cost of the salad bar is around $17 per guest, with discounts available for seniors and kids.

Sizzler's doors first opened in 1958 as an attempt to bridge the gap between the high prices of fine restaurants and the convenience of low-priced fast food meals. The steakhouse, originally named Sizzler Family Restaurant, championed fast casual dining and served its customers restaurant-quality steaks at affordable prices — a key selling point that remains one of its foundational principles to this day. The now-famous salad bar was introduced in the late '70s and has remained a core part of Sizzler ever since. The all-you-can-eat bar is so popular that it actually represents 40% of Sizzler's sales.

At its peak, Sizzler had 270 locations, but the ever-changing economy in the past decades led to most of them closing down. Today, the restaurant chain has less than 80 locations still open, but that doesn't mean it is giving up. The chain has been cooking up a nostalgia-based comeback that features revamped decor, new branding colors, and an updated salad bar with more options, more space, and better lighting. The goal of this rebrand is to remind Americans why they first fell in love with Sizzler, especially in the post-pandemic world where restaurant prices are still climbing up and more people are looking for affordable places with dine-in culture.