Buffets are a great customer pleaser
Restaurant equipment is generally located in the kitchen with the chefs, seeing as they're the ones who use it. Still, restaurant equipment for the dining area can be quite a useful addition to your business.
Buffet equipment, for example, is a great addition to many restaurants. If your restaurant is the kind that is open all day, but only gets busy for dinner, a buffet is something you could consider for the lunchtime crowd. Spend a few weeks to get to know the customer preferences. Study your sales, especially during lunch time, and try to get a handle on which items are your best sellers.
Once you understand the popular items on your menu, go about creating a version of that item for buffet consumption. This process could vary from item to item. A soup, for example, would be an easy item to transfer. All you would need to do is fill a tray with the soup, and put it in the buffet warmer. A fried half chicken, on the other hand, would be difficult to transfer to the buffet if all you did was just plop half chickens into a heating tray.
The thing to remember is that buffets are also a way for the customer to sample more than one item off your menu. Buffets allow guests to figure out which they like best and gives them a reason to come back another time for dinner. Larger items, like the half chicken, need to be smaller to allow for easier consumption. Take the half chicken recipe, and fry smaller pieces, like drumsticks, wings or breasts. This should make the pieces easy to fit on a plate with other great items.
You should also consider the menu overall. While your ten or so best sellers are a good place to start when designing a buffet menu, you can't just put out ten different versions of your famous ribs. The buffet should also be indicative of your overall menu, including different kinds of dishes. Try adding a cold section to your buffet to serve salads.
Pricing a buffet is also something to consider, as the number has to seem like a deal to both you and the customer. Taking the most expensive item on the buffet and charging what you word for an entree portion is a decent rule of thumb, though not always the best idea if you plan on enticing customers back to your establishment.
Overall, the buffet should serve to both make people excited for lunch at your restaurant, and show them what your restaurant is capable of so they'll be excited to come back again for dinner.