The Birthday Song in the Buffet

These places are about much more than unlimited food

All-you-can-eat buffets, I’ve begun to realize, are a kind of “third space,” in the same way coffee shops or bookstores—much more typical examples—are. I’ve been a buffet connoisseur pretty much as long as I can remember; my parents took me to one in Somerville, New Jersey when I was 6 or 7 years old, and I’ve loved them ever since. They’re all fairly s…