Ever find yourself craving a piece of cheesy toast, followed by a sizzling steak?

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Or, if you're really wanting to hark back to your '90s childhood, the toast followed by a mountain of potato skins and your body weight in soft-serve ice-cream?

Sizzler, the US-style all-you-can-eat emporium that more or less defined casual dining in Australia for 35 years, really knew how to maximise its profit, with queues out the door and piles of steak at the ready.

The key, I think we can all agree, was the aforementioned toast - really just salty, deep-fried bread that may or may not have contained a chemical that suppressed one's appetite.

After that, you could run riot on the prawn cocktails, pasta salad and ribs, topped off with the ice-cream complete with jelly and sprinkles. It satisfied multiple cravings and didn't break the bank, even for an entire family.

Those were the days. In fact, Sizzler lasted well into the 2000s, with the last remaining branches closing in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, that great fun-killer and world-leveller.

The landscape that remains is a changed one - we have a whole new way of approaching the ethos of the bottomless meal.

Is the state of the economy making it less viable for restaurants to risk mountains of wasted food? Or is it the proliferation of wellness trends, that see more people steering clear of said mountains of food, in favour of more mindful eating?

Regardless, the news last month that Sizzler is making a comeback - at Sydney Airport in coming months - has had us harking back to the glory days of the slightly........

© Canberra Times