Golden Corral Buffet & Grill — Restaurant in Tallahassee

Beyond terrible is the best way I can describe our experience while dining at this location. My wife and I decided to eat at Golden Corral this evening because we recently had an excellent experience at the one in Brunswick, Georgia. We assumed Golden Corral had uniform standards of cleanliness and food quality. Assume makes an ass out of u me. For starters, the cashier line and waiting area smelled like dank trash. I'm speaking of that horrible smell which is left over when a bag of trash has a small hole in the bottom and leaks on the floor leaving the ever so disgusting dumpster aroma. Everything seemed as if it had not been cleaned since the grand opening. Extensive layers of grime were present throughout the restaurant serving areas. The staff didn't seem to mind the serving areas which were riddled with food scraps and spills. The salad bar was unkempt. No fresh dinner rolls were available. I had to request dinner rolls to be brought out. I understand how things work in the restaurant industry and I know during rush hours it can be hectic. The problem is the restaurant barely had anyone in it. Maybe 1/4 capacity. The ice cream cones were so stale they were chewey. Old melted ice cream was evident in and around the machine. The dessert area had a serious layer of dust on top of the counter above the food. An employee was on her personal cellphone while wearing safety gloves in the back corner of the dessert bar. I had to interrupt her conversation to find out if the ice cream was frozen yogurt or the former. She seemed to care less about the fact her station was dirty and customers were in view. The food in general was very poor quality. The chicken was dry. The fries tasted like they were from lunch. The rice has hard. My wife said the cheese had started to encrust on the macaroni because it was so old. Did I mention it just felt dirty. The place has numerous health code violations which I will be contacting the health department first thing in the morning for a surprise inspection. The restaurant needs to be closed down and thoroughly deep cleaned. I will say one positive thing about our visit. Andrea, our server was excellent. She worked her tail off attending to our table as well as her other tables. She kept my glass full which is hard to do because I drink about 4 glasses of tea at each sitting. Did I mention the pizza? I mean cardboard with cheese. My infant son loves pizza but he couldn't eat it because the crust was rock hard. I tried to scrape off the cheese but he decided he didn't want it anymore. Going back to the moment we entered. I ordered a sweet tea. I am not joking when I tell you this. I took a drink of the tea and immediately my throat began to hurt. It was that sweet. Luckily, Andreas tea was excellent because it would have seriously made me peeved. You must have good quality sweet tea at a buffet. We are in the south. I asked for a manager. I don't know who Andrea brought over because he wasn't wearing any identification. He looked like a crack dealer. Facial hair unkempt. Shirt stained and unprofessional. We relayed our concerns to him. He seemed like he didn't care but wanted to give the impression that he did so it made the situation worse. I told him about the woman on the cell phone and he said he would handle it. Cell phones are riddled with bacteria and viruses. This was the major factor in writing...

8-1-22 12:27pm Dine In Like most Golden Corals it was normal busyness for lunch. Entered with no one at the front counter. Let’s review the restaurant itself first. Apparently the staff designates dump tables throughout the restaurant. It’s the first thing you notice is tables throughout stacked with dirty food filled plates etc.. We’re talking 2-3’ft high, crazy. Instead of wiping them into the trash as they come in and separating the dirty plates, silverware and glasses in separate bus bins they are just stacked on tables throughout the restaurant. The restaurant was dirty throughout, employees were walking around like zombies. In the room to the back left behind the bar doors there was a small group laughing hollering and being obnoxious until another waitress finally went back there and Heard her tell them they’re being too loud. The bathrooms were horrendous! Dirty filthy and the trash bins were completely rusted. Every crack and crevice was filled with gunk. Completely filthy, disgusting. This restaurant needs a complete and thorough cleaning by a professional company and lose the rusty trash cans. The Food! So I’m a bit confused about the food and why everything was over cooked. The Brussel sprouts were mush, the cooked carrots shriveled and all wrinkly and most important of all the fried chicken was apparently saved from the previous day or at least that’s what I thought because it was tough and dry. So I waited and finally they refilled the Brussel sprouts but unfortunately they were also mush. What is mush? Mush is when you can take your fork and push lightly down with the back flat side and it literally flattens down to a little mush pile. The chicken was refilled and I was excited to run up there only to find the new batch just put out was also over cooked. I’m not 100% it was over cooked, I’m thinking it was refried from the previous days left overs because it was tough on the outside and completely dry on the inside. This is the dark meat, can you Imagine the breast. Let’s move on to deserts. I usually enjoy the pies but not when they’re frozen. Apparently bad planning by someone so they ended up with frozen pies? OMG! Needless to say this was the worst Golden Coral I’ve ever been to. If I hadn’t been to so many good ones I’d never go back to one again but I’ll just never go back to this location ever again. I will say I’m from the north where this restaurant would be shut down. I’ve known for many years that generally the southern restaurants standards are way lower than the north, so lm spoiled. Apparently the southern folk are willing to put up with this disgust. Tables piled with dirty dishes (I counted 6 tables), frozen pies, mushy and over cooked food and filthy bathrooms. Definitely wouldn’t recommend...

Food was great. Finally they have a steak guy that knows what he is doing. The gentleman cooked my medium rare steak perfectly as though he knew exactly how long it would still cook on my plate. The waitress however came across as racist to the point that people of color around us were talking about how we were being ignored. (We are caucasian by the way) I've never not tipped someone but I almost found myself not tipping her. I've never been racially discriminated against before this but i even heard the interracial couple behind us talking disgustedly about how the girl was seemingly ignoring my wife's attempts to flag her down to correct our drink order. The drinks were corrected well after dessert. Had we not paid first I feel we would have had to seek out someone to make payment to after our meal that's how ignored we were. She helped people (again people of color) all around us and we called her by her name to no avail. The family seated across from us (whose children were adorably wearing black lives matter t shirts pointing out the the words I matter within them in a different color putting a face to the phrase) leaned over and apologized to us for the waitresses actions, though we never spoke out loud that we felt how we felt, by saying, "please don't let her actions reflect on all of us as a whole we don't all act like this." I said that to say this, the racism was palpable. To the point that someone that was guilty of nothing felt the need to apologize. They had no obligation to do so but did. It embarrassed me and my kids that they had to point that out due to their disgust of the actions of a black employee of Golden Corral. This needs to change and should we decide to visit again (though doubtful) I would expect to not see her face again. We traveled from Georgia just to dine there as we have never experienced this before there. It used to be our go to spot in Tallahassee. We've eaten in upscale restaurants there and holes in the wall but it has been our favorite up until now since the reopening. We've been married 10 years and 5 anniversary dinners we've opted to dine here over an upscale restaurant for the service normally received. We never expected this. We actually once traveled 270 miles from Athens, Georgia just to eat there for our anniversary of our first date. Never again will...