didn’t sell food or drinks

Wait, they tried to run on just the cost of the machines?!

Wow is there a word for being business blind? That is like not selling smokes or scratch tickets at a gas station.

There is this cafe in my vicinity in Norway that does that. It was situated on the main highway going south from Oslo, but ended up a bit out of the way when the new modern multi lane road was built. They do decent food, nothing exceptional. Two or three main courses with associated sauces, selection of deserts, selection of steamed vegetables. You have to drive to get there and it seems well visited three few times I have been there tbr last five years.

They do have a good reputation for catering. Think that's what keeps them "real" proftlitable.

In Estonia we call it "rootsi laud" or "Swedish table". You can just keep on going to refill your plate with anything you want. On average people pay for more than they eat so the few outliers like me stuffing tons of salmon on my plate don't make the place bankrupt.

I think hotel breakfasts do this in most of the world, but here we also have it on ships, where the food is actually good

So no, it isn't unique to the US.

I mean do they have all you can eat buffet anywhere else but America?

HA!

Wait are you serious? YES people all over the world love all you can eat, much like people tend to like eating.

I mean do they have all you can eat buffet anywhere else but America?

They most certainly do have places that offer unlimited amounts of food for a fixed price, but not necessarily in the form of a Chinese buffet and often using a different name for it, in for example Belgium it would usually be called à volonté while in for example Switzerland it would usually be called à discrétion.

It's a fairly common thing in France, especially for asian theme restaurants in my experience.

Pizza Hut in the UK has all you can eat. That's the only place I've ever seen it done though, unless you count free drink refills at IKEA.

"All you can eat" is a binding contract.