Smiley Anders for June 16, 2009

• By SMILEY ANDERS
• Advocate columnist
• Published: Jun 16, 2009 - Page: 1B

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John Rooney of Portland, Texas, says our mention of Pancho’s Mexican Buffet brings to mind a story which explains the dangers of locating “all you can eat” places near college campuses.

It might also explain why Pancho’s is no longer in Baton Rouge.

“Back in my school days at LSU, when some of my Johnson Hall dorm-mates and I could not tolerate another meal at Hatcher Cafeteria, we would load up in my truck and go to Pancho’s on Nicholson Drive.

“Usually eight or 10 of us would go for the all you can eat buffet, which I think was $2.99.

“The manager used to hate to see us come in, as we definitely got our money’s worth! We would eat until our arms were too tired to raise the flag for the waitress to bring more food.

“Of course we always topped it off with basket after basket of sopaipillas. One of my more country roommates could not pronounce sopaipillas, so he would tell the waitress to bring more ‘bread.’ ”

Which reminds me
In my LSU days we constantly searched for “all you can eat” places or, even better, free food events.

Fisherman James on Florida offered unlimited fried catfish or chicken one night a week, and college kids would descend on it like a plague of locusts.

It wasn’t a pretty sight. …
And some of the bars on the Amite River offered free Saturday night suppers, usually a huge pot of fish courtbouillon.

There were two dangers here:

(1) The suppers were advertised for 6 p.m. or so, but the food wasn’t served until 9 or 10 p.m.   

(2) And the food was very spicy indeed.

Both of these factors led to the purchase of large quantities of beverages — which meant that often after a “free” supper we would wind up broke.