As the stage curtain parts, gospel singer Kertrina Dauway struts onstage and yells, "Are you ready to praise the Lord?"

Photos by CHERYL DIAZ MEYER/DMN

Jay Lattimore sings with Kertrina Dauway during a House of Blues Gospel Brunch. The $34 buffet and gospel music event was started in 1992 at a House of Blues near Boston.

But the House of Blues is mostly silent. The sold-out crowd is still busy piling plates with fried chicken, smoked bacon and raspberry cobbler.

When the buffet is open, even the Lord has to wait.

Welcome to the House of Blues' Sunday gospel brunch, that strange-but-popular intersection of music, God and all-you-can-eat shrimp jambalaya.Club co-founder Isaac Tigrett came up with the concept in 1992 at the first House of Blues near Boston. Fifteen years and 10 clubs later, HOB's gospel brunch has become an institution.

At the Dallas club in Victory Park, most brunches have sold out since they began in June. Last Sunday, ticketholders for the 12:30 p.m. brunch lined up outside the concert hall before the tables were even cleared from the 10 a.m. seating.

Once inside, they attacked the buffet with a vengeance. But they didn't seem quite as eager for the gospel as they were for the brunch.

When Dallas gospel bandleader Donald Wright commanded everyone to stand up and dance, nobody complied. When he said, "Wrap your arms around the person next to you," most ignored him.

But slowly, song by song, the crowd started to get into the spirit.

Ms. Dauway prompted everyone to wave their red napkins in the air. Mr. Wright persuaded three audience members to sing into the mike along with the choir. And by the end of the hourlong show, Ms. Dauway got 50 people to dance in a conga line through the club and onto the stage, where they joined the band in singing "ain't nothing like a holy ghost party."

"You can see the people warming up right before your eyes," Ms. Dauway said after the brunch, as customers came up to thank her.

"Watching the expressions on their faces change from beginning to end is spectacular."

Those faces are 95 percent white, with most people dressed casually rather than in their Sunday best: The vibe is more Rangers Ballpark than Baptist church.

"It's always like that," Ms. Dauway said of the racial makeup. Black people in Dallas, she said, "just don't know about it yet."

But gospel music expert Bill Carpenter said more of them "probably don't go because they're in church at the time, not to mention the price: If they want a buffet, they can find one around the corner for $15, and if they want gospel music, they go to church where it's free." (HOB charges $34, plus service charges, for adults.)

Mr. Carpenter, the author of Uncloudy Days: The Encyclopedia of Gospel, has been to HOB brunches in Los Angeles and Chicago. And while he enjoyed them, he said they shouldn't be mistaken for a real gospel experience – either musically or spiritually.

"It's a white tourist audience coming out of curiosity," he said. "They watch the show, but they're really concentrating on the buffet."

That's OK with Ms. Dauway, a veteran gospel artist who hosts the Dallas brunches every week.

"If nothing else, you're here to have a good time," she said. "If something really touches your heart, that's fine, but we're not forcing it. Jesus doesn't force himself."

The gospel brunches are Sundays at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. at the House of Blues, 2200 N. Lamar. $34 ($14 ages 5-12; free for 4 and under, although tickets are required). This Sunday's brunches are sold out; the Gospel Stars and Ms. Mary Steen perform Aug. 12. 214-978-2583, www.hob.com.