OK, OK, OK, I was wrong! The food at these hotel breakfast buffets is wonderful. Seriously, I’ll make a few points here rather than respond individually.

1. Sounds like I need to stay at Embassy Suites and Drury Inn, the consensus picks for best breakfast in this thread.
2. It’s funny who tends to comment on pieces like this. If I write that hotels serve really bad food for breakfast, we get 100 comments saying, ‘you’re an idiot, the food is just fine.’ I’m quite certain that if I changed this story to say that hotel breakfast food is excellent, I’d get 100 people- maybe the same ones- telling me I’m an idiot, the food is terrible. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion- that's why we have a comments section here!
3. Several commenters have said, ‘what do you expect, these are budget hotels.’ I don’t view any of the hotels mentioned as “budget.” To me, budget is Super 8, Motel Six, Days Inn, Red Roof, Ramada, etc, etc. If you’re spending $100-200 per night, as you would in most of these hotels, that’s mid-range accommodation.
4. Many of these same hotel chains are investing a lot of money to provide high quality toiletries,- Residence Inn now offers Paul Mitchell shampoo and conditioners, and the Garden Inn offers Bed, Bath and Body Works, for example, in order to lure customers, so why not do the same with breakfast?
5. Two points about cost. First, I’m not only singling out only “free” breakfast buffets in this piece, (though those do tend to be the worst) but also ones you pay extra for. Second, you are paying for the “free” breakfast as the cost is passed on to you in your room rate.

6. Of course, we can go out and pay for breakfast at a restaurant, and sometimes we do, but the point is that you feel guilty going out for breakfast when you have one you've already paid for at your hotel. If I had the option of booking a room without the “free breakfast” I would gladly skip it every time and go out to eat. Sadly, that is not an option.

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