John’s Incredible Pizza reimagines its buffet, welcomes families again

John’s, which is at The Boulevard — formerly Boulevard Mall — on Maryland Parkway is a family fun center, with rides and games for “kids of all ages.” But a centerpiece has been a buffet arrayed on four spacious U-shaped counters close to the venue’s themed dining rooms, one counter dedicated to salads, one to pizzas, one to pastas and one to desserts.

In a COVID-19 world, however, the buffet — always a dubious proposition for anyone even resembling a germaphobe — has become festa non grata.

While the buffet at Wynn Las Vegas is scheduled to reopen Thursday with a revised format, other casino companies have refused to disclose plans for their contributions to Las Vegas iconography.

And Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation salad-buffet restaurants announced a few weeks ago that they were flat-out closing because there was no way for the company to operate under current guidelines.

In-house style

John’s has found a way. The Las Vegas outlet was the 14-restaurant company’s first to reopen, on June 8, and it was with a new style of service, based on technology developed in-house.

Here’s how it works: Patrons pay at the front desk, just as they always have. They select a table and take a seat, then use their phones to scan the QR codes on their receipts or go to the John’s app or johnspizza.com. (Paper menus are available for those without phones and/or computer skills.)

The first step is to order beverages, which will arrive in short order along with breadsticks with honey butter or ranch dressing. At that point patrons are free to order food from the app/menu or a colorful laminated sheet. Each person can order up to two plates at a time, with up to four items per plate. Once that food arrives, they can order more until they reach the end of their two-hour window.

So, if they want to start with a salad, they can choose garden, Cobb, spinach-cranberry-feta, Caesar, taco or barbecued chicken, with one of seven dressings. Or soup, such as chicken pot pie chowder. Pizza, in 16 varieties ranging from the classic cheese to the spicy peanut butter. Pastas, fried chicken legs, side dishes such as potato fritters and desserts such as banana wafer pudding are all theirs for the asking.

When the app gets an order, it prints it out to be picked up by a food expediter. Employees, such as team leader Wendy Garcia, make tracks from station to station to load up the narrow carts with multiple shelves, one that holds extra silverware and one with condiments, so everything can be delivered together.

The (former) buffet stations are equipped with electronic tablets tracking what time the food was put out (a buzzer goes off when the time is up) or to notify the kitchen when something’s getting low. Restrooms are on timers, too, to be sanitized every 15 to 20 minutes. Tables have been spread out and some booths marked closed.

Games and rides also have been spread out, which necessitated the addition of electrical boxes to service them. Dots on the floor anywhere people might congregate encourage social distancing, and Kiddieland, where toddlers often packed in to play together, is closed for the time being.

Some tweaks made

In just over a week, a few tweaks have been made, store director Chad Skog said. Customers missed their straws, so now there are paper-wrapped versions available; lemon wedges are available, too, in little lidded plastic cups.

Skog said volume has been creeping up slowly.

“We’re glad to be open, glad to be serving the community,” he said. The weekend brought a number of birthday parties.

“It was fun to see that, fun to have the little kids back again,” Skog said.

Monday night, the family and friends of Kyrie Williams were celebrating his second birthday. Friend Nicole Phillips, 10, said she’d been in once before, “and I loved it.”

Fun vs. making sense

“I liked the buffet,” she said. “I’m sad” about the change.

Era McCarthey said she felt comfortable because of a high level of sanitation.

“It was pretty easy to use, the way they explained it,” she said. “The other way was more fun, but this way makes more sense right now.”

Sheldon Williams had brought his three children — Zachariah, 8, Layonna, 7,and Jeanette, 5 — just to give them a chance to get out of the house. Williams, too, lamented the loss of the buffet.

“That was sad,” he said, “but I know there are safety issues. You’ve got to take the good with the bad.”

Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474. Follow @HKRinella on Twitter.