11 Of The Absolute Best Golden Corral Buffet Tips You'll Want To Remember
If you've ever frequented a buffet before, chances are good you've dined at Golden Corral. With hundreds of locations around the continental U.S., it's hard to avoid the homey food mecca when you're in search of an all-you-can-eat lunch or dinner. Now, we won't make the claim that the chain serves up the best food in the country — in fact, there are some dishes you should definitely avoid at Golden Corral. But it has enough winning selections to make the sub-$20 buffet worth an occasional visit, even if just for the dopamine rush you'll get from having so many choices at your disposal.
Buffet fans, lean in — if you want to take your Golden Corral visit to the next level, you're in the right place. While we can't take a magic wand to your buffet experience, we can give you a handful of tips to make it all the more enjoyable (and help you avoid annoying buffet moments in the process). Strategizing your buffet meal will give you the most bang for your buck, and making rookie mistakes ultimately leads to dollars down the drain. Loosen your belts, tuck in a napkin, and dig in to 11 of our best Golden Corral buffet tips.
Save room for dessert
We'll start with the end of your meal, a course that deserves just as much weight as any other: dessert. It's all too easy to put sweet treats on the back burner, using them as a way to round out your meal if you're still hungry after eating the mains. But we think dessert should get more room in the spotlight — particularly at Golden Corral, where treats are supplied in endless rotation and the only limit is how much you can fit on your plate. Take the opportunity to gorge on as many different dessert dishes as you can stomach but do keep in mind: Not all desserts are created equal.
While we're totally pro-dessert buffet in general, some items are better passed by. It's hardly a secret by now that you should skip the chocolate fountain at any buffet, and Golden Corral is no exception. A never-ending flow of chocolate sounds luxurious, but throw a rotating door of humans in the mix, and you invariably end up with disastrous consequences. Several Reddit users who frequent the buffet recommend staying far, far away from the chocolate fountain, making the very valid claim that the chocolate waterfall is a cesspool for bacteria. Think about it: Unsupervised kids will without a doubt stick a germ-laden finger (or a hand or, god forbid, a tongue) in the fountain, and you're fooling yourself if you think they get cleaned throughout the day. Diners who are chocolate lovers, prepare yourselves to be met with a wicked concoction of who-knows-what should you indulge in the chocolate fountain.
You can get a to-go box
Now, onto greener pastures — perhaps you have a Golden Corral item that you invariably love, or you're a die-hard fan of an underrated Golden Corral buffet offering that you'd like to have for both lunch and dinner. A lesser-known fact about the buffet is that you can actually take items to go. But before you get all excited at the prospect of a two-for-one meal, takeout boxes are unfortunately not included in the price of a buffet ticket.
To take food home from Golden Corral, you'll grab a to-go box, fill it up with your favs, and weigh it — you'll pay a set price per pound of food you take away. Prices likely vary at any given location but will probably be between $7-$9 per pound of food. On the bright side, paying per pound (rather than per item) leaves plenty of room for you to be strategic. Stay away from taking heavy items like mashed potatoes, soup, or chili. Instead, load your box with a dinner-sized portion from the salad bar, grab a heaping helping of the rolls you love, or take a couple pieces of fried chicken home.
Don't skip the customizable stations
Should you head to Golden Corral for breakfast on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, you'll be treated to a couple more offerings than weekday breakfast diners would enjoy: namely, some ultra-customizable stations that (in our opinion) make the breakfast buffet worth a visit. On weekends, Golden Corral offers an omelet bar, where you'll pick from an array of inclusions (like various veggies and cheese selections) and your omelet will be made on the fly. Though we've never been to the weekend breakfast buffet, it's reasonable to assume lines for the omelet bar may get hectic during peak hours — either head in early or keep an eye on the line and jump in when it's shorter.
Depending on which Golden Corral you visit, you may also have a waffle bar at your disposal, with the obvious butter and syrup options available, as well as possible specialty toppings (like the peaches and cream pictured above). The waffle bar is also a weekend-only offering, and if that's what you're craving, it's worth putting in a call to your closest location to make sure it offers said waffle bar on weekends.
Use the small plates
Though this tip isn't necessarily exclusive to Golden Corral, we do think it applies to this particular buffet chain more than it may to others. Why? Well, Golden Corral is stocked with large portions or spoonable servings of your favorite dishes. While a more elevated buffet may see smaller grab-and-go items lining the buffet (like sushi, crab legs, or appetizer-sized offerings), Golden Corral stocks its line with huge pieces of fried chicken, vats of mashed potatoes and mac and cheese, and giant slices of meat.
If you want to sample as many buffet offerings as possible, take our advice and use the smaller plates. A large plate could have you grabbing the biggest piece of fried chicken available and spooning heaping helpings of macaroni and cheese right next to it. A smaller plate will force you to be economical with your space — maybe you go for a smaller fried thigh and limit your mac to half of a huge spoonful. Remember, you're not limited to that one plate. You can always go back for more of the dishes you enjoy, but sampling portions on a small plate first will both keep you from filling up too fast and help the restaurant reduce food waste.
Opt for the steak
If you're paying for an all-you-can-eat meal, it makes sense that you'd want to get the most bang for your buck out of it. Don't just gorge yourself on the cheap selections you can get at any drive-thru (looking at you, french fries) — instead, go for the premium offerings. The carving station at Golden Corral could keep you occupied for a while with its plethora of meat offerings, but one you absolutely shouldn't sleep on is also one you won't see on the line: steak.
Steak is like Golden Corral's secret weapon, something it can pull out of its arsenal should it ever receive accusations of being a mediocre buffet. See, not only will the steak help you get the most value for your meal, but it's also inarguably one of the best options at Golden Corral in general for one simple reason: All the steaks at the spot are grilled to order. So not only will your steak be fresh, but it'll also be cooked to your liking. We'd venture a guess that a similar steak at many other spots would cost at least as much as what you pay for access to Golden Corral's entire buffet.
Register to earn Golden Corral rewards
Super-savers and penny pinchers, here's your tip for the day: Sign up for Golden Corral Rewards. Buffets are already an economical way to fill up on heaps of food, and rewards programs hack the system even further. Golden Corral's rewards program is free to join and only requires signing up through the app. From there, you can scan receipts, earn points, and eventually get rewards toward your next meal.
Plus, we love when a rewards program is easy to understand, and Golden Corral's couldn't be easier. $1 earns you one point, and once you've hit 100 points, you can redeem them for $10 off your next meal. Sure, it may take a few rounds to reach the 100-point threshold (or just a couple if you regularly dine with family and friends), but in this economy, the value of a free meal really can't be overstated. Also worth mentioning is Golden Corral's Good As Gold Club — members of this club will get extra perks like birthday deals, exclusive coupons, and free beverages.
Don't fill up on carbs
As with any buffet, you'll want to eat strategically — Golden Corral is certainly no exception. A common rookie buffet mistake is filling up on carbs at the start of your meal. We know, we know, pasta and potatoes (and rolls, of course) seem too tantalizing to pass up, but it's never worth abandoning yourself to the pleasures of cheap carbs when more expensive options are within arm's reach.
Now that we've gotten the basic don't-eat-carbs-first rule out of the way, it's worth mentioning that some carb-heavy options at Golden Corral simply don't taste good enough to be worth filling up on. Take, for example, its mac and cheese. We've found the typically delicious dish to be definitively subpar at the GC (though, yes, it looks tantalizing in the above picture), and we'd happily skip it next time to save room for more fried chicken. The biscuits, on the other hand, are well worth loading up on once you've had your fill of everything else the buffet has to offer.
Do a full walk-through before loading up your plate
We've all been there: You're walking through the buffet line and have just filled up your plate, but you see a tantalizing offering just around the corner. So, you either scoop some on top of everything else and pray you have room to stomach it all, or you vow to go back for it once you've downed your first helping — but then, you're too full to even think about eating anymore.
Friends, this problem is easily avoidable, and our solution will only delay your meal by a minute or two: Scour the buffet before picking anything up. Just take a walk through the whole thing, make mental notes of which stations look most appetizing, and start there. Again, keep some of our other tips in mind and don't head straight for the mashed potatoes, for example. Scouting out the buffet first is always a good idea, but especially so at Golden Corral — if you're arriving at the tail end of breakfast or lunch, it will give you the chance to grab some remaining dishes before they're replaced with those for the next meal.
Go in for a late lunch
On that note, do head in for a late lunch when you can, and draw your meal out a little. Why? Overlapping your meal between lunch and dinner (or breakfast and lunch, should you be feeling a more brunch-forward vibe) will give you access to many more offerings than if you just dined during one mealtime. Grab the last of the lunch dishes that will be put out, but don't fill up — wait just a bit for dinner offerings to start being served up.
This means you're basically getting two meals for the price of one and could make the slight headache of eating at odd hours very worth it. (In fact, odd hours may be the best time to go to a buffet in general.) Or perhaps you have a small stomach and rarely eat more than one plate at a time. You can still take advantage of this tip if that's the case — eat your fill on lunch and take away your dinner portion in a pay-per-pound to-go box.
Sit near the carving station
Sitting near the buffet is advisable in general — after all, it's beneficial to be right there when fresh dishes get put out, and you can beat the line to score hot portions. But where do you sit when the buffet line spans the entirety of the restaurant, like at Golden Corral? Pick a table near the most prized station so that you're ready to hop up and grab a plate at a moment's notice: the carving station.
We've had lukewarm ham at the Golden Corral before, and it's an unpleasant experience, to say the least. Not only was the taste subpar, but there's also the obvious health risks of food sitting at room temperature for too long. Don't grab the dregs of the carving station's offerings — instead, wait until you see that fresh slab of meat being cut into, and pounce on it. The flavor difference will be well worth sitting amid swarms of people at the front of the restaurant.
DIY some sandwiches
Sandwich lovers, here's your time to shine. Sure, your Golden Corral may not serve up ready-made sandos, but chances are it has all the fixings for one — why not make it yourself? This is a genius move to pull out at any buffet, but we're particularly fond of it during breakfast hours at Golden Corral, especially considering its selection of mouthwatering biscuits.
Load up a small plate with a biscuit, scrambled eggs, sausage, and some grilled veggies, and voila! A delicious breakfast sandwich right at your disposal. Or, use a couple pieces of toast to sandwich together some bacon, lettuce, and tomato for a DIY BLT. At the end of the day, the only thing you're limited by at a buffet is your imagination. With all the raw materials at your disposal, you can create whatever edible Golden Corral concoction suits your fancy.