9/2/2026
Each August, old friends call while in town for the Iowa State Fair. They want advice about where to eat when they are not eating at the fair. This year, I was asked about KPOT more often than any other restaurant. I don’t visit all-you-can-eat (AYCE) buffets as much as I used to, but it was time to check out KPOT because they are both the hottest buffet in America and the most talked-about restaurant in nearly every town where they open a store.
AYCE buffets are an American invention. They had a precedent in the smorgasbord, which was carried to America by the Swedish pavilion at the 1939 World Fair. But El Rancho Vegas is credited with the first AYCE buffet when employee Herb McDonald talked his bosses into sponsoring a late-night experiment in 1946. It cost $1 and justified its losses by keeping customers awake long enough to gamble all night. Only in America, and only in Las Vegas, could such an icon of excess and gluttony have been invented.
In Iowa, Alvin “Caroll” Meyer opened Gold Buffet in 1958 in a Winterset bowling alley. For more than three decades, it was probably Iowa’s most famous restaurant, advertising frequently on radio and TV. It grew to 350 seats and expanded to an even larger location in North Kansas City, also attached to a bowling alley…