Golden Corral

Saturday nights are not alright unless you enjoy long lines and annoyed acted employees.

When I was in my high school marching band traveling to the away games to Wilson Hall, sometimes the band director would take the entire crew here.
I haven’t been to Golden Corral since I’ve moved to Chicago, and this place really felt nostalgic. My father-​in-​law always likes GC. A group of eight (8) of us were here. I thought it was a good choice because of the buffet style: there’s always something an extremely picky person would eat.
An weekday (Monday to Friday) adult buffet is $ 8.67/person (as of 01/​25/​2016). Drinks are extra. Here’s a southern thing. If you don’t want your tea sweetened, make sure ask for «unsweetened tea.»
The buffet features the typical buffet fare, perhaps with a slight southern twist here. My favorite was the cheddar biscuit. However, everything else was a bit high in their sodium content. Upon finishing the first plate, my stomach felt heavy and subsequently I carefully paced myself.
Choices of fresh fruit weren’t non-​existent in the dessert bar, yet I found some melons and cantaloupes at the salad bar.
Sanitation here appeared quite alright. Ms. Bobbi Jean provided excellent service, refilling our beverages correctly and in a timely manner.
We enjoyed our meals and had great fun chatting and reconnecting with our folks. There aren’t many choices of restaurants in Sumter, SC (approximately an hour away from Columbia). However, our experience at GC this afternoon was pleasant.

I haven’t had a bad experience here yet. I must go at the right times because the food taste fresh and hot and overall I enjoy it. I feel like I actually get my money’s worth. It’s a good place to go when you can’t decide what your in the mood for. Plus they treat military and vets very nice there. Which is always a plus in my book.

The building seems clean enough, though the waitress pouring/​refilling drinks often spilled the liquid on the carpet without much care. While she was doing that, she seemed to forgot to refill a lot of other peoples’ drinks even though we were in the same area.
The «Asian”-styled food they had out was horrible. I think I had the orange chicken and it was either too salty or too sour. I’ve since forgotten what else I had tried in that section since this was from a visit probably a year ago for a farewell luncheon.
The only other thing I remember is I have never seen okra with pepper on it before or, at the very least, not with the amount of pepper that was used on the okra here. I love okra, but the okra here was bad. Wal-mart’s okra was better than this.
On a previous visit they were advertising some steak item and it was very dry and tough to chew.
Their only redeeming item are the rolls with their honey-​butter spread.

Referred to as «the trough.» It attracts heavyweights from the four corners of Sumter and competes with Ryan’s Buffet across the street. Recently re-​opened after a renovation and change in ownership.
I’m not a big fan of buffets because I always eat way too much, but if you’re faced with the tough decision of here or Ryan’s; go here. Don’t even think about getting a seat here on Memorial Day when they offer free meals to military. You will wait hours.