Buffets are where indecision finally gets rewarded.
At one Tennessee spot, more than 100 choices mean your plate can change direction halfway through the line and nobody has to apologize for it.
Southern comfort food does plenty of the work, but the setup keeps moving from there. A carving station adds something freshly sliced, the salad bar gives you a lighter detour, and dessert waits patiently at the far end like it already knows how this is going to finish.
Friday and Saturday give you a little more breathing room too, with service running later than the rest of the week.
This is not the meal for making one careful decision.
It is the meal for making five decent ones.
More Than 100 Choices Make One Plate Almost Impossible
More than 100 items give Brickhouse the kind of range that changes how you approach the first trip through the buffet.
Trying to fit everything onto one plate would miss the point. A better approach is to look around first, decide what deserves space, and leave room for another round.
The everyday lineup centers on Southern favorites, vegetables, sides, and familiar comfort dishes. Fried chicken and meatloaf sit beside pasta, baked chicken, macaroni and cheese, greens, and other hot options.
The selection is broad enough to let one person build a traditional meat-and-sides plate while someone else heads in a completely different direction.
That variety is useful for families or groups with different appetites. Nobody has to commit to the same entrée, and smaller portions make it easy to test something unfamiliar before going back for more.
The buffet format also changes the pace of the meal. Instead of ordering everything at once, you can build the experience in stages. Start with a few favorites, pause, then decide what deserves another trip.
Brickhouse prepares family recipes from scratch in small batches in its restaurant kitchen. Small-batch cooking applies across the buffet, including the comfort-food dishes that form much of the everyday lineup.
Friday And Saturday Give You An Extra Hour To Settle In
Weekend timing matters when dinner is supposed to be the outing instead of something squeezed between errands. Brickhouse stays open until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, one hour later than its Sunday-through-Thursday schedule.
That extra hour gives you more flexibility for a later lunch, an early dinner, or a slower evening meal. There is no need to race through the door immediately after work on Friday, and Saturday can stay open for whatever else the day brings before dinner.
Brickhouse also offers carry-out, which gives the restaurant another option when sitting down for a full buffet does not fit the day. The dine-in experience follows the all-you-can-eat format, while carry-out provides a quicker alternative.
The later closing time works well with the way a buffet meal naturally unfolds. You can start with a smaller plate, take your time at the table, and return for something different without turning dinner into a quick in-and-out stop.
Friday and Saturday simply give you more time to decide how long the meal should last.
Fried Chicken And Southern Sides Keep The Everyday Buffet Grounded
The buffet does not depend on one special event or limited-time menu to make a regular visit work. Everyday choices include fried chicken, meatloaf, baked Greek chicken, spaghetti and meatballs, macaroni and cheese, vegetables, and other sides.
Those dishes give the buffet a familiar Southern backbone. You can build a straightforward comfort-food plate without studying a complicated menu or waiting for a particular weekend feature to appear.
Small-batch cooking applies to the family recipes served across the buffet, including the familiar comfort-food dishes that make up much of the everyday spread.
Vegetables and sides give you room to change the balance of a plate. One trip can lean heavier on fried chicken or meatloaf, while another can shift toward greens, squash, potatoes, or other vegetables.
That flexibility keeps the hot-food area from feeling like a single fixed combination. The buffet gives you the pieces, and you decide how traditional, light, or comfort-heavy the final plate becomes.
If a meat-and-sides meal is what you want, there is enough variety to build it differently on a second trip through the line.
A 40-Plus-Item Salad Bar Can Be A Meal Of Its Own
The salad bar is not a token bowl of lettuce sitting beside the hot food. Brickhouse gives this section more than 40 items, making it one of the largest individual areas of choice on the buffet.
That size gives you several ways to use it. You can start with a smaller salad before moving toward the hot stations, build a larger bowl as the main part of the meal, or use the section to add something cool and crisp beside richer foods.
A buffet already lets you choose portions, but a salad bar pushes that control further because every ingredient can be added or skipped individually. The result can be simple or loaded depending on what sounds good that day.
It also gives the table an easier answer when different people want different kinds of meals. One person can head directly toward fried chicken and sides while another spends most of the first trip at the salad bar.
Because the salad section is large enough to stand on its own, it adds contrast to the heavier foods elsewhere. That makes it easier to build a plate with more balance before moving toward the carving station or dessert bar.
The Carving Station Was Part Of The Plan From The Beginning
The carving station was not added later as an extra attraction. It was part of the Brickhouse plan from the beginning and helped shape the way the buffet was organized.
Owners John and Janet Golon started with the idea of freshly carved favorites, then added separate buffet bars around the dining area so people could move between sections instead of crowding into one long line.
That layout gives the buffet some structure when more than 100 choices are involved. You can move toward the section you want rather than following one fixed route from beginning to end.
The carving station adds freshly sliced meats to the rest of the buffet, while the surrounding hot-food areas expand the range with additional proteins, vegetables, and sides.
Prime rib, ham, turkey, tenderloin, ribs, salmon, and shrimp all appear across Brickhouse’s buffet presentation and gallery, giving the hot-food and carving areas several directions to go.
The result is a meal that can move from salad to carved meat, then toward vegetables, sides, or another hot dish without forcing every plate into the same pattern.
More Than Ten Desserts Leave Room For A Completely Different Final Plate
Dessert is built into the buffet as its own section rather than one or two sweets placed near the register. Brickhouse offers more than ten rotating hot and cold dessert options.
The dessert bar includes ice cream, cobblers, pies, cakes, and other sweets. That gives the final trip through the buffet the same choose-your-own approach as the rest of the meal.
A small serving makes sense after several savory plates, but the variety also lets dessert become its own round. You can skip a full slice of something heavy and sample a couple of smaller choices instead.
Hot and cold options create another contrast. A warm cobbler lands differently from ice cream, while pie or cake gives you a more traditional finish.
Saving a little room becomes part of the strategy. Once you reach dessert, there is still enough variety to make one final trip through the buffet feel different from everything that came before it.
The dessert section also keeps the meal flexible right to the end. You can finish with one simple choice or build a plate with a couple of smaller tastes.
Walk In, Pay, And Head Straight Toward The Buffet
Brickhouse was designed around removing the usual order-and-wait routine of a full-service restaurant. You walk in, pay, get seated, and can begin eating without waiting for a server to take a food order.
That setup is part of the original concept John and Janet Golon developed for the restaurant. The buffet uses separate food areas rather than one long line, allowing diners to move between stations according to what they want next.
Once seated, you control the order of the meal. There is no required first course, main course, or side combination. You can start at the salad bar, head for the carving station, choose a few hot foods, or circle the room before putting anything on the plate.
Brickhouse Buffet & Carry Out is at 2861 Bartlett Blvd, Bartlett, TN 38134. It is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
The all-you-can-eat format, 100-plus choices, 40-plus-item salad bar, carving station, and rotating dessert section give you room to build each trip through the buffet differently.
Start wherever you want, return when something deserves another look, and let the meal move at your own pace.