A Pizza Buffet With Gumbo, Catfish and Dessert Pies

A muffuletta pizza is not what most people expect to find beside fried chicken, gumbo and a big bowl of macaroni and cheese. Here, it is a useful introduction to the scale of the buffet: pizza is central, but it shares the table with Southern cooking, Cajun favorites, seafood, pasta, soups, salads and desserts that arrive in pizza form, too.

This is a dine-in, all-you-can-eat meal built for wandering rather than ordering one plate and sticking with it. You can start with a slice, detour into fried catfish or lasagna, then come back for a salad or a bowl of soup. A visit can easily involve a few rounds through the room.

The line is substantial enough that taking it in can take a while. One account of a walk along the buffet ran more than three minutes, which gives a sense of how much territory sits between the first pizza pan and the final dessert tray.

The pizza selection goes well past the familiar standards, with unusual and harder-to-find combinations mixed in with crowd-pleasing choices. That makes the buffet friendlier to the person who wants a straightforward slice and the one who treats every pizza pan as a small experiment.

The muffuletta pizza is an especially memorable example. Borrowing from the New Orleans sandwich tradition, it brings a Gulf Coast note to a format usually associated with pepperoni and cheese. It is the sort of slice that can make a second pass through the buffet necessary.

Pizza works nicely here as a sampler food. A small slice leaves room for a spoonful of pasta, a piece of chicken or a few seafood items, rather than making the meal a one-course commitment.

The hot-food side of the room reads more like a broad comfort-food spread than a standard pizza-buffet add-on. Fried chicken, chicken fingers, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, meatballs and vegetables give the meal plenty of familiar, filling options.

Baked chicken has appeared alongside the fried version, and chicken and dumplings adds another homestyle choice. Lasagna is a recurring favorite, a hearty square of pasta and sauce that can hold its own against the more regional dishes.

Cajun and Louisiana-style items give the buffet another direction to explore. Gumbo, red beans and rice, fried okra and hush puppies bring a welcome bit of variety to a plate that might otherwise be all cheese and crust.

Seafood is another reason this buffet feels broader than its pizza-first identity suggests. Selections have included fried catfish and fried shrimp, with hush puppies nearby for a proper fried-seafood plate.

That mix gives a family table plenty of ways to divide up the meal. One person can build a catfish-and-okra dinner, another can concentrate on pasta and chicken, and someone else can go slice by slice through the pizza selection.

A large, notably fresh salad bar provides a useful reset between the richer buffet stations. It is a genuine meal option for diners who would rather build a plate of greens and toppings before adding just one or two hot selections.

Soup is also given real space on the buffet. Several choices may be available, with gumbo among them, so a bowl can serve as a starter or become one more stop in a long, leisurely tasting route.

Pasta comes with multiple sauce options, allowing diners to choose their own direction rather than settling for one preassembled dish. It is a small detail, but on a buffet this large, those choices add up.

The dessert section carries the pizza idea into sweeter territory. Chocolate-chip pizza or pie and apple-crumble pizza turn the familiar round shape into something closer to a bakery treat than a final leftover slice.

Apple crumble brings a fruit-and-cinnamon direction, while the chocolate-chip version is for the diner who wants to end with warm, cookie-like sweetness. Neither calls for much restraint, especially when the meal has already made a case for trying a little of everything.

Dessert pizzas also work well for a table where tastes do not line up. A person who wants chocolate does not have to negotiate with the person who wants apples.

The Mediterranean-inspired setting gives the dining room a different backdrop from the typical roadside buffet. But the practical appeal is simple: there is enough variety to handle a table of different ages, appetites and food preferences without turning dinner into a long debate.

Children have easy landing spots in pizza, chicken fingers, pasta and sweets, while adults can move toward gumbo, catfish, shrimp, salad or baked dishes. Larger family groups have fit in comfortably, including parties spread across several tables.

Drinks have included soda, tea and coffee, and a free parking lot with ample space removes one common hassle before the first trip to the buffet begins.