Golden Corral Buffet & Grill — Restaurant in Alton

New flavors of chicken, huh? I LOVE chicken! Free meal coupon for my birthday? This is a no brainer, right? They were busy as usual, no problem. I understand that. Nobody could figure out how to use my coupon code on my phone, so we waited while people were behind us making comments that they had to wait. Found a table, settled in, then went directly to that new chicken that has been advertised everywhere. Well, I found an empty pan where the regular chicken should have been, one dried piece of "honey" chicken, and 2 pieces of " Nashville Hot" chicken. Ok, let's try this honey drizzle chicken...well dang, if this wasn't so hard from sitting so long, I'd say it's pretty good. I like this. Let's try the Nashville Hot now, not bad at all, but the pieces that were left had been sitting for a bit. I didn't even want anything else now, but the flavors of that chicken made me go back up and get some fresh ( hopefully) pieces. Upon arriving at the chicken station, EVERY pan was empty. Are you kidding me? Should I go sit down and take the risk of missing out on the fresh refills? After all, this was the only gold I had struck for my meal. Nope, I pulled up my big boy pants, took a deep breath, and proceeded to wait patiently. After 10 minutes of customer's bumping into me, then asking why I was standing there, I explained I wanted some fresh chicken. I saw one of our favorite waitress's asking them about the chicken. I didn't see her get an answer. I looked at my watch and 20 minutes had gone by. I've STOOD there 20 full minutes and no chicken. Customers were waiting with to go containers, apparently waiting to pounce on the fresh chicken, if and when it would appear. Alas, I saw some chicken going into a fresh pan. "Here it comes!" I exclaimed. Like a child at Christmas, here was the gift I had been waiting for! Thank you Santa, I had indeed been a good boy this year! The cook brought up a full pan of, wait... regular chicken? Damn you chicken god!! Why has thou forsaken me! What have I done to deserve this! Alright, surely the new flavors are coming, and those who have started a line behind me, will be feasting, oh so soon. Here comes the cook with, wait, what? 1, 2, 3, FOUR pieces! Over 20 minutes for four pieces of Nashville Hot, and the other cook brings out the same four count of the Honey drizzle chicken. I couldn't believe it, but quickly grabbed 2 pieces of each, 2 for me, and 2 for my wife. Oh, the salty words being tossed my way as I walked away with my chicken laden plate. My family was pretty well done eating, and heading to the dessert section, as I'm finally getting a hot meal. This isn't the first time I've experienced such, less than satisfactory service at this location. We have visited other Golden Corral restaurant locations with better then decent food and service. This is my story. None of the facts have been embellished for amusements sake. I hope if you visit, your story is one of much greater joy and is a much pleasurable experience.(Had to condense...

Aaron green the “manager” was a lil rude, he didn’t want to communicate like a normal human being and instead wanted to aggressively come up to my family and tell us to move and got in my aunts face, mind you this is a full grown man, all because we sat in an area that was for another party, but prior to that we had no knowledge about that and instead of wanting to give us a refund or to let us continue eating where we sat he decided it was best for the police to handle the “situation” and forced us to leave without us eating or our money back. Honestly I’ve never been treated like that and I would never treat a family out at dinner like that either. Before leaving I walked around and asked 2 employees what his name was and the first one that watched everything happen said she “I don’t want to get involved in anything” and the second waitress seemed scared and nervous and said “uhhh I don’t know if I can”. This is one of the worst visits I’ve had with them and Ive went to alton Golden Corral for years and had problems with them but never like this. We are super nice and forgiving people but we will never visit this location ever again because of the poor manager that lacks basic people communication skills and a high school diploma. I hope he doesn’t treat his employees like that because that would be awful if I was ever to work for such a man I would quit in a heart beat, it is more that uncalled for him to act like a teenage girl that’s not getting her phone back. Please note that out of the numerous times I’ve experienced this fine establishment the bathroom did not meet the cleanliness quota either as in the toilets sometimes have dried human feces on the actual seat it’s self sometimes. I’m not one to ever leave a review or even complain about terrible service I usually just go home and have a nice rest of my day but I feel as if anyone who wants to see a good review from a person who truly cares about cleanliness and appropriate service take this as a warning to please not waste your...

Update 6yrs later [04/4/25]

What a shame.

This will, unfortunately, be the last time I come to this restaurant. I thought I'd give them one more chance, as we have eaten here for years. The food quality is absolutely disgusting now. Just heated trays filled with mysterious brown goo that hasn't been stirred for hours (days?).

I made multiple trips to the buffet in search of....meat. Just good old protein. I found old/dry pulled pork, extremely old, uh, Salisbury steak maybe? It was crusted over with dry congealed gravy. My wife had the honor of grabbing the last overcooked, day old, microwaved dried out burger.

The veggies held up after a reheat "okay". The pizza was doughy and undercooked. The pork steak(?) was extremely grey and old looking. Nothing had been stirred, and I know I wasn't the only person pacing back and forth looking forlornly at the offerings in a way that can only be described as "midnight, looking hopelessly in the refrigerator on grocery shopping eve"

Nothing is going to magically appear, and nothing magically did.

Our waitress this time was friendly enough, but slowly the wait staff has largely become unfriendly, and unhelpful. The restaurant is not very clean.

I hope I don't get sick. I say this with the best of intentions to any management reading this: If you aren't already aware, these are the signs of a dying restaurant. Best of luck, I hope you can change course.

I won't be back again.

Original review 6yrs ago:

Absolutely best golden corral in the area, bar none. Super friendly wait staff, food is almost always fresh, and the selection is great. Easy...