Golden Corral: What are you Doing?

Hello, my name is Marzelen, and I love buffets but hate spending money.

I'm not too bad though - I like using coupons, I but clothes on sale/clearance, I only really get store brand foods, and I keep every single receipt like it's a page from a tome in the Library of Alexandria. Spending money at restaurants? Okay, but there comes with it a few stipulations: If I'm going to be spending, say, $60 on a buffet, then I better get the best service, the best food, and have the time of my life. My recent visit to the  Golden Corral in Beckley? Average, at best.

Golden Corral has been here for only two months, and I have to say: you wanna compete with the well-known and well-loved places around you (Chick-fil-A, Cookout, Logans, Five Guys, Rio Grande)? You better step up your game. As mentioned before, the total price for being able to just walk in and sit down, was SIXTY DOLLARS, and that's only for THREE PEOPLE. I understand if you think that's reasonable, but coming from a family with only one worker who's not NEARLY getting paid enough for all the stuff they do, 60 bucks is pretty steep. 60 bucks is a luxury.
As far as location, it's also another miss from me, considering the building sits on one of the busiest intersections in this part of the state(or so it seems) and getting in and out of that parking lot is asinine, and I won't even bring up trying to find a parking spot...

When you walk in, you're greeted by typical Golden Corral standards: no one even makes eye contact with you until you reach the till. You walk through what could only be described as a vertigo-inducing half hallway to the drinks, where you have all of your wonderfully basic choices: Dasani water, teas, both unsweet and "sweet"(meaning if you don't add your own sugar it tastes like earwax and lies), you standard Coke products on the same outdated machine you would see in a food museum, and coffee that's probably been sitting there since they opened the doors at lunch.

Getting to the till was okay at best, but if there's one thing that I didn't really like was the way they pretty much leave you to your own devices when it comes to finding a table as if this is high school. Thankfully, it didn't take us long to find a seat, but when we did find one, it hadn't been cleaned, even though the table next to us had not one, but two people cleaning it. Makes sense, right?

All of the impossibly annoying seating later, we finally got some food. I started simple, with a small bowl of chilli and some nice fresh fruit. My mum got their broccoli cheese soup.

To be a bit fair, the chilli was not at all bad, just underseasoned (and by that I mean it was nothing but salt. Wendy's chilli? Spot on). The broccoli cheese, however, was very good. As for my fresh fruit... 

 I'm not the biggest health nut out there, but I know canned fruit when I see it, and I have to say it's completely disappointing. I understand that it's winter and fresh fruit is hard to come by, but come on Golden Corral. For claiming to be America's #1 buffet and grill, you surely have access to growers in warmer parts of the country right now.

Appetizers aside, it was time for the main course, which I decided to keep simple as well: some chicken, a yeast roll (only one because God knows I don't need six for myself), a baked sweet potato, and some butter. (The white one is sour cream because I thought I wanted a russet but decided against it.)

 First of all, the chicken. How does one achieve a level of chicken like this, because the entire outside was seemingly sticky, and the skin dissolved the second it came into contact with my saliva, and not in a good way. The inside, however, was surprisingly greasy. Not the kind of greasy that comes naturally from the meat, but the kind of greasy [I thought] you'd only get from six buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken (which tastes way better than GC's chicken, so save yourself the money and hassle).

Golden Corral's rolls are admittedly good when they're fresh. The roll pictured on my plate seemed more like I was eating a stale bagel than a famous yeast roll, which I can understand since I myself have baked before and food hardens with time. However, the second roll I got with my macaroni and cheese (not pictured) was very soft and buttery and delicious.
(Speaking of the macaroni, save your money there as well because it tasted EXACTLY like KFC's mac&cheese.)

As for the potato, I didn't really eat much of it because from my seat, I only had to turn my head a whole 2 degrees so that I was looking at the dessert table, but I do you see that butter? That butter was under two lights and right next to a hotplate keeping the potatoes warm, so there really should have been no reason for it to be frozen solid...
My mum got a Bourbon Chicken, which she described as looking like "dried, hard deer poop", and their pulled pork BBQ, which was "dry and chewy". Yikes.

As mentioned before, we were close to the dessert buffet, which had an amazing looking chocolate fountain, and I wish I was able to get to it, but alas I couldn't because teenagers feel the need to congregate like lost flamingoes for some reason, and even when you say excuse me, they look at you like you've just sprouted eyeballs all over your face. Go figure. My mum ended up getting a scoop of the mint chocolate chip and butter pecan ice cream.

She claims that it was very delicious, but due to a certain lactose intolerance, I couldn't have any, so I got the chocolate pudding, and I don't think I've had anything so revolting in my life...

First of all, the presentation itself is lovely, but that's about the only good thing it had going for it. The whipped cream on top had solidified because it wasn't refrigerated, and the pudding itself? Abhorrent. It was crunchy, chalky, and oily all at the same time, which I don't know about you but that's not how I want my pudding to be. So I finally bit the bullet and decided on a small serving of ice cream (which I'm still paying for today, a week later. Although it could be the whole experience here).

This is their ice cream from the machine, whereas the one my mum got was actually scooped by a real person (although the way they didn't make eye contact with anyone made me think they were more robot than human...). This was surprisingly very good - not too sweet, not too chocolatey, it was a good consistency, and the all-around perfect duplicate to Wendy's chocolate Frosty.


All in all, I'd give this Golden Corral a solid 2.2/10. Way overpriced for their food, and everything you can get is a worse version of something you can get at a fast food place for cheaper, and the staff? Completely non-existent. Perhaps when they get a better idea of what they're doing it will be better, but for now? Don't waste your time.