A buffet (from French:sideboard) is a system of serving meals in which food is placed in a public area where the diners generally serve themselves. Buffets are offered at various places including hotels, restaurants and many social events.

Las Vegas and Atlantic City are famous for all-you-can-eat buffets with a very wide range of foods on offer (similar ones have also become common in casinos elsewhere in the US).

Buffets in Las Vegas give new meaning to the word “buffet.” In addition to offering a 24-hour “Buffet of Buffets” pass that allows you to indulge in unlimited food at seven different buffets, the offerings at buffets in Las Vegas can be rather impressive.

On April 3, 1941, hotel owner Thomas Hull opened the El Rancho Vegas. It was the first resort on what would become the Las Vegas Strip. The hotel gained much of its fame from the gourmet buffet that it offered. The birth of the Las Vegas buffet is generally credited to one Beldon Katleman, who bought the El Rancho Vegas (the city's first real resort) in 1947. Katleman was trying to figure out how to keep people in the casino -- and, it would follow, spending money in said casino -- after the resort's second show of the evening, and came up with the idea for a $1 Midnight Chuck Wagon Buffet. It didn't take long for the other hotels to decide that the loss leader was a great idea, and the idea gradually was expanded into daytime meal options. An enduring tradition was born.

More Info: en.m.wikipedia.org