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When Toucan Charlie's Buffet & Grille reopens Aug. 4 in the Atlantis casino, folks won't meander the main drag (or side streets like the salad and dessert bars), checking out dishes, helping themselves to lo mein and soft-serve, perhaps passing by pasta salad and baked fish, returning to scoop up enchiladas and oysters.
© Johnathan L. Wright/RGJ At the Atlantis casino, Toucan Charlie's Buffet & Grille is set to reopen Aug. 4, the first casino buffet in Reno and Sparks to do so under coronavirus safety directives.Instead, a plastic barrier will stretch the length of the buffet counters, from fried shrimp in the north to tacos fixings in the south, dividing folks from food.
Customers, wearing masks, will form lines at each buffet station: seafood, carvery, Asian and so on. Folks will indicate the foods they want, and from behind the barrier, staffers will plate and serve the food and supply utensils, but only for that station — no passing plates along.
And there will be a time limit on grazing: two hours.
These and other significant changes mark the property's bid to re-invent all-you-can-eat dining, to balance safety with a slice of classic Nevada, as the Atlantis becomes the first casino in Reno-Sparks to reopen its buffet under current coronavirus directives.
'We were always committed to reopening, because our guests always want our buffet to be open, and it's a staple, but we waited to do it until we could do it with the utmost care for our guests and team members,' said Chira Pagidi, the Atlantis' food and beverage director.
'People can still have as much as they want — they just can't get it themselves.'
Monitoring the lines; a reservations kiosk
© Johnathan L. Wright/RGJ At Toucan Charlie's Buffet & Grille in the Atlantis casino, counters on the buffet line are being fitted with plastic dividers to partition food and staff from customers, in keeping with coronavirus safety practices.The other morning, Jurgita Samardokiene, the buffet manager, walked the dining rooms, testing table arrangements so they complied with the maximum number of diners (six) and the minimum number of feet apart (six, too).
In one hand, she held a cell phone; in the other, a fat tape measure.
'I've been measuring, measuring, measuring,' she said. 'I do a lot of projects at home, so I'm pretty comfortable with it.'
The buffet, like other Nevada restaurants, will be seated, at most, at 50 percent capacity (about 200 diners, Pagidi said).
COVID: Atlantis reopened on June 4, tested employees prior to opening back up
Managers must closely monitor that capacity, Pagidi and Jamardokiene said, so the line to get into the buffet does not get so long that people cannot socially distance. Managers will also have to do the same monitoring for lines at the food stations.
Both types of line will have floor decals to indicate proper distance.
Large parties, which the buffet typically attracts, will be split into groups no larger than six for seating.
A kiosk that might not be installed by the Aug. 4 reopening will eventually allow folks to make reservations, pay and receive a ticket for entry.
How challenging will social distancing be?
© Johnathan L. Wright/RGJ Open seating is being reduced and rearranged at Toucan Charlie's Buffet & Grille in the Atlantis casino as the buffet prepares to reopen Aug. 4 under current coronavirus directives.Back inside Toucan Charlie's, there will only be lunch, dinner and weekend brunch for the time being (no breakfast).
The dessert bar remains. As at the main buffet line, staffers will hand to customers foods they select, so the self-serve soft-serve machine is being removed.
The salad bar remains, too, in a sense. Its greens, prepared salads, fixings, condiments and soups are being transferred to the main line for service, but the bar itself is being re-purposed for decorative displays of food and flowers.
Buffet officials acknowledged that some issues (and how to address them) will only fully emerge with reopening: How will the flow of food service proceed? How difficult will it be to maintain social distancing in lines? What is the best practice for monitoring and enforcing the two-hour limit?
In June, the Wynn became the first casino on the Las Vegas Strip to reopen its buffet. The place is still all-you-can-eat, but it's partly become a traditional restaurant because customers order from a menu and are served at table.
Pagidi, the Atlantis food and beverage director, said that was never an option at the Reno property.
'A lot of our guests, they look at buffets as different from other restaurants. If they want restaurant-style service, they go to a restaurant. If they want buffet-style, they go to a buffet.'
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Johnathan L. Wright is the food and drink editor of RGJ Media, part of the USA Today Network. Join @RGJTaste on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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This article originally appeared on Reno Gazette Journal: Atlantis to reopen its buffet with big COVID-19 changes, first Reno casino to do so