HERE are some Red Hot World Buffet facts.
The past 12 months has seen the Manchester restaurant feed half a million customers, with diners consuming: 50,000 pizzas; 900,000 pieces of sushi; 104 tonnes of chicken; 104,000 litres of ice cream; 13 tonnes of Chinese noodles; 182,000 taco shells and 20,000 kg of rice.
That amount of rice apparently weighs the same as 200 pandas. We'll have to believe the press release as the office panda left us some months ago muttering about a 'non-existent love-life'. He stole the scales as well.
The finale of the opening will see the unveiling of an enormous edible chocolate sculpture decorated with 1,800 petit fours consisting of 600 different varieties of tiny desserts.
Given those jaw-dropping stats - and they are jaw-dropping despite what people might think about the food - it's perhaps not unsurprising that Red Hot World Buffet Manchester is expanding.
Panda Visualised In Cartoon Form But Not Dissimilar From The Standard Measurement Of Rice In Red Hot World Buffet
On 28 June a luxury second floor will be launched with the target of bringing the total number of diners served every week to 12,000.
The new 10,000 sq ft floor is 'tailored to provide dedicated facilities for corporate and business guests, and will also be used to alleviate demand at peak dining hours by increasing the restaurant’s capacity by 40 per cent.'
The new floor cost £250,000 to fit out and will add another 150 covers to the restaurant, bringing the total to 525. Bosses expect the additional space to add a further 2,000 diners per week to its current total, which means weekly figures of almost double the number served by the self-styled ‘biggest restaurant in the UK’.
Red Hot World Buffet director Helen Dhaliwal said: “The Manchester restaurant has been our most popular venue by far since we launched it last year. We always expected to hit our targets but we have seen a huge surge in demand in the last 12 months from both corporate and casual diners, this is why we have expanded to provide flexible corporate dining facilities and relief during peak times.
“We envision companies using the second level for working lunches that cater for employees’ and clients’ hugely varied tastes and eating requirements. As well as access to 300 dishes from around the world, the floor will have boardroom facilities and wifi, as well as booths that can be booked, all individually decorated to create an wonderful ambience of rustic luxury.”
Chicken Visualised In Cartoon Form But Not Dissimilar From A Real Cluck-Cluck Of The Type That Lays Down Its Life For Buffet-munchers
The finale of the opening will see the unveiling of an enormous edible chocolate sculpture decorated with 1,800 petit fours consisting of 600 different varieties of tiny desserts.
It's all so excessive you can't help but smile.
It seems that with the launch of Tops on Portland Street (click here), the ante has been well and truly upped by Red Hot World Buffet.
