GOLDEN CORRAL-ADJACENT, USA — The Regional Buffet Authority voted unanimously Tuesday to ban caramel apple slicing after 3 a.m., citing a string of late-night “sticky incidents” that one inspector described as “the worst thing I’ve seen in food service, and I once found a ladle in a soup.”
The ban targets the popular “Midnight Slice” practice, in which buffet patrons purchase whole caramel apples at closing time and slice them at the table for sharing — a ritual Authority director Ron Pruitt called “noble in spirit, catastrophic in execution.”
“Caramel at 3 a.m. is a different substance,” Pruitt said, displaying photos of what appeared to be a table, four chairs, and one (1) fork fused into a single caramel-based entity. “The caramel re-hardens. The apple juices run. By 3:30 you’ve got a table that’s technically a sculpture. We had to throw away the table. The table.”
The Authority’s incident log for October lists 14 sticky incidents, including: a napkin dispenser rendered permanently inoperable, a toddler’s shoe bonded to a floor tile, and “Incident #9,” described only as “the booth,” with all further details redacted.
“We asked for the details of Incident #9,” said health inspector Dana Whitfield. “The Authority declined. They said, and I quote, ‘some things should stay sticky.'”
Patrons are divided. “The midnight slice is tradition,” said regular Carol Benson, who has visited the buffet every Friday for six years. “You get the apple, you slice it, you share it with your table. It’s communal. It’s beautiful. Yes, my purse got stuck to the table in 2023, but that’s part of it.”
The Authority stressed the ban applies only to slicing after 3 a.m.; whole caramel apples may still be purchased and consumed “in their intact, God-intended form” until closing. A grace period runs through Halloween, during which violators will receive “a warning and a wet wipe.”
“We’re not monsters,” Pruitt said. “We love caramel apples. I had one for lunch. But there is a time for slicing, and that time is not 3 a.m. That time is never 3 a.m.”
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