GGC EATERY — Restaurant in Thornton Township

My wife loves this place but me not so much. The wait to order the food was an hour. The wait to receive your order was another hour. We arrived around 1:30pm and there was a line out in the door into the 25 degree weather. The lobby actually holds about five people yet have couple of tables and chairs but no real dining area. The place is NOT a dine in place. They have one cashier when they clearly need two. The cashier/owner clearly should rethink this location as they cannot accommodate the customers. At one point he stopped taking orders to do crowd control to allow as many people into the lobby as possible. What would have helped is if he had another person working another register. So after placing the order, they took our phone number and said we will receive a text when it was ready. We actually went to a couple of stores and came back. The food was still not ready. After another 20 minutes we finally received the text and picked up our order. We get home and I must say I felt the food was average. The chicken wings was just fried wings like you can get from Harold’s. The Mac and cheese was good but the sweet potatoes were not sweet. I got the Hennessy sauce on the side instead of on the wings and I tasted more Louisiana hot sauce more than anything. The cashier was very professional and kind but the 2 hour process left a bad impression. If you care about customer service then think about ways to get customers in and out faster than 2 hours. Was it worth the 2 hour wait? I have to clearly say NO. The sides and not made as you order so the only thing you wait to be cooked is the meats which may take some time but not an hour. They don’t take orders online nor can you call in a order. What is stopping them from cutting the order time? The only things I can think of is need more staff or the owner doesn’t want anyone working with the money except himself. I honestly saw several people get out of line and leave because of the wait time. At 20-50 dollar orders they let a lot of money walk away. The entire experience was bad just to get home and eat average food. Honestly the food at Golden Corral is better. Nothing against the chef but getting past the two hour wait standing in the cold is what’s hurting reviews plus the average food. I don’t know if the owner is a veteran but not seeing veterans discounts is also a minus. I try to patronize black owned businesses in our own neighborhoods but two hours is ridiculous. Address that issue first because it’s valid. You remember that Big Daddy’s BBQ was there and it also got rave reviews before closing. Very disappointed and will try again one day when they have better...

What can I say about GGC except that the food is exactly as the name implies.... It's a KNOCKOUT!!! Chef A and B are a cooking team extraordinaire and an even more wonderful/loving couple that have put a lot of love and pride into their business/restaurant and the food that they prepare. Even when I didn't know them, the way that they treated customers at their restaurant made you feel like family and now as I come to know them from my frequent visits, I can say they truly are like family. I have never been disappointed with the food here (and I've tried just about everything) from the Fri/Sat menus, soulful soul food Sunday menus, the special pop-ups and of course the meal prep which helped me to remove 40lbs over a 4-month time span. We've even used them for holiday meals when we simply didn't feel like making it last year. Now that my schedule has me working 4 10hr days vs 5 8hr ones, I've started to prep more of my own with the extra day off but it doesn't stop me from getting a few meal prep meals from them and having one cheat day each week from their regular menu.

Some of my favorite meals are the hibachi garlic noodle combo meats, chicken/shrimp fried rice, fried lobster/shrimp/catfish, crab boils, seafood Mac n cheese, their pizzas, their gumbo, their eggroll varieties, the turkey spaghetti, the fried salmon, shrimp or catfish n grits, a deep fried turkey sandwich that was the best hoagie ever, their baked potatoes with the truffle butter and house made cheese sauce, the turkey chops, their dirty rice (my favorite side of theirs) as a side or stuffed in a smoked turkey leg. My favorite desserts are their brookie cookies and peach cobbler. They also make some delicious sauces like their signature Hennessy VSOP sauce, the two sauces they use on their crab boils and for their surf n turf eggrolls, their creamy jerk, their housemade gravy and one time I had a special made steak/lobster/shrimp platter that came with a sauce for the steak that was the best sauce I ever tasted and I long for it again and hope they'll bottle it like their Hennessy sauce because I'll put that sauce on everything. They also make some great lemonades. The meal prep meals vary each week and so it's never a boring week of just the same thing each day. Everything is flavorful and filling. What else can I say other than you'll just have to try it for yourself and see what everyone else in these reviews are...

Visited today (8/23/2020) and I have mixed emotions.

Because @blackpeopleeats spoke so highly of this place, I decided to give them a taste. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the reviews on Google, though.

First - ordering was easy and all online. We ordered the night before to ensure we wouldn’t miss out, as the reviews/comments seem to suggest you order your food in advance to secure your desired items. The next day we received the text for a pickup time “after 1:50p”. Knowing they close at 6p, we thought that meant we had until then to get our food.

Fast forward to 5p, we drive 45 mins to Hammond and follow the instructions in the text. There’s a lady in line already fussing about missing items and I just minded my business. I texted my name and almost immediately the young lady came out with a bag of food. I thought (and said) “that was quick!”. She proceeded to tell me the pick up time was 1:50p, so I’m like “so you just had my food in a bag on the counter for 3 hours?”. Having been my first time ordering, maybe I misread/misunderstood their whole system, but there was no reason for me to believe the pickup time was more than a suggestion. Especially given how busy they seem to be. We specifically didn’t go earlier to avoid crazy lines/wait times. Anyways, I had an attitude but trekked back to the city to see if the drive and time were worth it.

The food looked good. We ordered:

1. Henny Wings
2. Baked Chicken (dark)
3. Mac
4. Yams
5. Green beans
6. Cornbread

After heating up my 4 hour old food, we dug in!

Starting with the meat - it was hard to eat the wings because I’m scared of roosters! I don’t care how much more meat you get, those fake oversized wings are BAD BUSINESS! I bet the sauce was good, but cold fried roosters are not appealing.

The baked chicken looked more seasoned than it actually was. Hardly any taste.

Mac was ok. No real complaints.

I haven’t eaten baby food in a long time, but their yams were mashed just like it. Tasty, but not my ideal preparation.

Green beans were good! Salty, but gave the other bland items some seasoning.

Cornbread was missing, so I haven’t a clue how it tastes.

All in all, I’m good. I supported and that’s that. I will likely not return unless I’m in the area and there’s nothing else open. And even then, I’ll try one of the specials - the soul food options...