Golden Corral Buffet & Grill — Restaurant in Fort Smith

I will start off by saying this, I used to love this place, but reasons in the past have kept me away since. I'm going to try to give constructive criticism, not get mad.

Firstly, the food. On my plate from the buffet, I got chicken breast, a roll, pizza, and some fruit. When I cut inside my chicken breast, it was pink. And I'm not talking about like a spot or two, the whole inside was. I put that aside, thinking it may have been a fluke. The pizza was next. I bit into it, and I swear it was hard as a rock. There was almost no sauce or cheese. The slice just tasted like bread if I'm being honest. The roll wasn't much better. It was also cold, and even with butter, it tasted kind of like unseasoned crackers. There was also a hair in my water, not much needed to say for that. I give 2 stars because the fruit was incredible. Pineapples, oranges, cherries, strawberries, everything popped with flavor. They were juicy, sweet, and very fresh. The fruit saves the food, which gets two stars. For the food, I think a thorough or just check of the food before opening would do wonders. Also, I would love if the food could be kept warmer. After food, we go to service, which, on a little bit higher of a note, is 3 stars.

Secondly, the service. You meet someone at the counter, grab a plate, and then get your food. Obviously, with no waiters, it's hard to judge service, but I can. You get your food instantly, plus, but then cleanliness is again a problem. The utensils can sometimes have clear food stains or other interesting things on their. This is also the same for availability. Sometimes, you have to wait for about 5 minutes for a plate. Now, I'll throw selection in here because I think it's fair. Anyway, this restaurant has the greatest selection you'll find in arkansas, another big plus. With the two positives in service, I'll give it 3 stars. I would love it if utensils and dishes could be washed or cleaned so that they are sparkly and ready. Sadly, we go down again to my lowest point yet, atmosphere, which is 1 star.

Third, the atmosphere. I honestly was kind of disappointed walking in. No chatter, barely any music, no warm feeling, no cool lights, I just didn't feel invited. That's all I can really say, although I gave it a one-star because of some cool paintings they had scattered, including a really cool horse. Here's my advice, put up some cool lights, maybe add a fireplace, lively or classical music, an mp3 player, just something to get the place lively, fun, enjoyable! Going up to two stars again for the last time, the price.

Finally, the price. My family of 5 ate here for 95-105 dollars. Which, normally, for a restaurant is about 20 bucks lower than others, and it's good pricing. But not for a buffet. Even if the experience was perfect, paying 18-20 for some food that you could whip up at home is not good. I'm not going to harp on this, though, and I'll say my conclusion.

In conclusion, I wouldn't recommend coming here unless they get some of these points fixed. If they can improve the quality of their food, utensils, and dishes by a wide margin, pump some life into this place, and lower the prices, then we can talk about higher ratings. I would love to see this place succeed, but right now, it isn't the time to...

I sit my water on the table and went through the buffet line. When I got back to my table, I took a drink of my water and the drink tasted terrible. The drink was something besides water that tasted terrible and had a horrible taste. I told the waitress and she brought me some water that was fit to drink. I watch my drinks very closely now. The waitresses are always coming to my table now and asking me if I am alright and ask me if I need a refill. I tell the waitresses no. That is a nuisance to me to keep coming to me table to ask while I am eating. I have talked to the General Manager and some of the other managers about this. One of the managers told me to tell the waitresses that if I needed anything else I would let them know. I ate at the Golden Corral on Friday, February 28th and told the waitress I wouldn't need anything else. She came back to the table and asked me again. I am tired of this and don't like this after all I got a very bad drink one day. Last week, on Friday, February 21st, I told the waitress I wanted coffee. The coffee tasted old and very bad. I told the waitress the coffee wasn't fresh, but she said the coffee wasn't old. They need to get some good coffee in the restaurant. I returned to the Golden Corral three days ago and I told the cashier that I didn't want a waitress to keep coming to my table to ask me if I wanted anything else or drinks. She called the Assistant Manager out and I explained to her Jamie Shockley. She said alright I will take care of it for you and said where are you going to sit. She saw where I was going to sit but I didn't see her tell the waitress when she walked around. I told the waitress that I didn't want a waitress and not come back to my table. When I had finished eating and was drinking water, one waitress came to the table and said do you want anything else now. I said no. I called the General Manager and told her that they didn't fully listen to me. At the end, they also came to the side of my table and started sweeping with a sweeper. They didn't leave my area and that sure sounds strange. They are people with bad mental problems emotionally off their rocker. They are also pest and...

The food which was terrible gave me diarrhea last night and all day today. Still think I'm sick from it. Service was awful. Young teenage/early 20's type females working. They were very rude and disrespectful. Didn't even greet us or say hello when we walked up just "how many." I said 2 adults with just water to drink and then we just stand there awkwardly staring at eachother because I was expecting her to hand us our cups (I haven't been there since 2016) and then she finally tell us the cups are on the other side of the soda fountain before I finally was going to ask. We got our drinks, walked over to the buffet and got our food and then I realized we never got silverware so I walked up to ask for our silverware and a different girl was behind the register and she was very rude. I came up again later to ask if I could run out to my car and grab some medicine (my boyfriend was suffering from a horrible migraine). The two girls were were behind the counter chit chatting and decided to ignore me and finish their conversation before paying me any attention. I asked them about getting the medicine and one of them just smiled and gave a thumbs up which I found pretty disrespectful. There was no music playing inside the restaurant, only when you walk in entryway. The lights were very bright and and the employees were being very loud and disruptive while cleaning (there were still 2 hours left until closing). Our server was too busy cleaning too notice we needed refills on our drinks so my boyfriend had to go refill our waters. The server then came up and asked if we needed refills 🤦‍♀️ and when we left, we were ignored once again. No have a nice night or anything. I don't do reviews often and take the time out to type out an essay long rant so when I do, you can bet it was definitely a bad experience and I'm pretty upset. Golden Corral, do better. Also, the fayetteville location was pretty sorry too when I...