Golden Corral Buffet & Grill

Even though I continued to hear such bad things about this particular Golden Corral, I tried them out for the first time because we needed a place that would work for a large family gathering (party of 18). The staff was very friendly and helpful, but that doesn’t out-​weigh how awful the food was or feeling crammed into a weird room in the back where they stick large groups all together. Anyone getting a piece of chicken noticed it was undercooked. Everyone else had food that tasted old and overcooked, like microwaved leftovers. And this was on a busy Saturday evening at 6pm when fresh food shouldn’t have been an issue serving. Horrible experience.

First time here on a Sunday night and this place was a huge letdown. I honestly feel like I’ll be sick from food poisoning by the morning. Not much in the way of fresh food here, everyone looked like they were getting ready to close with 2 hours left. The mashed potatoes had crusty lumps in them, the refried beans were non-​existent and were completely crusty. The pepperoni pizza lacked flavor and had a weird fruity taste to it. The meatloaf was burnt and crusty and the toppings for any tacos was minimum. The saving grace to this first and final visit was the vanilla ice cream. At least they didn’t go wrong with that.

OK. I thought most of the veggie dishes had way too much salt. The meats were not the best cuts. Wish the salad bar had beets and not the rotten looking shrimp and odd looking meat. The dessert bar made the visit OK.

I really like this Golden Corral. I was eating there weekly until they started the breakfast all day promotion. It bores me and displaces many of my favorite items.
I want to see fried catfish on the bone, fried chicken livers, pinto beans and black eyed peas that aren’t dried up and crusty.
The salad bar is always fresh. The service is good. Prices are fair except at dinner when there are too many breakfast items taking up space. I suspect there is a strategy with that however as breakfast is more profitable than dinner items therefore they are showing more profit during this promotion. I’ll outwait them and go back when B.A. D. Is finished.

I’m am reviewing this establishment in comparison to other buffet restaurants, including the North Spokane GC location. This store has great table service, but is variable in selection and freshness. Some days (mid-​week at 4:30pm) they are always full of fresh selections and the food is decent with a few yummy surprises. However, if you go at prime time (6pm or weekends) there are always several empty bins, you have to wait for steak to cook, and the food that’s full is either stale or you got lucky. I don’t know if they don’t realize they’re empty (they should, it’s a BUFFET!!) or there just aren’t enough people cooking, but for the price ($ 12 per person + $ 2.09 for drinks) you expect to have a decent selection. For example, the chili was dried up and crusty our entire last visit, the bacon was refilled a pound at a time and emptied within minutes. The popular items go fast, so unless you want Brussels sprouts and baked fish, go at off-​prime days and times.

We haven been to Golden Corral a few times in the past and didn’t care for it. This year we had lots of family in town and decided to try it out. We were very impressed! Hot food, lots of choices and great service.

I have been to several golden corrals and my family loves this one! My kids love the cotton candy, ice cream, pizza, and mac n cheese. I enjoy the steak, salad bar, and grilled veggies. I have a young family and its easy with the little kids no waiting for our food, check, and refills. When we go out as a family this is where we go!

I have seen Golden Corral commercials on cable for years and thought there were none in the Seattle area (found out there’s one in Marysville — yea!), so while on our road-​trip last weekend in CDA, we found a Golden Corral and I was so excited — FINALLY get to try :)
We went for breakfast last Sunday before heading out of town to go back home. What a layout! They’ve got Country Buffet beat all to hell — everything we tried was wonderful and plentiful and fresh! I truly don’t understand the negative comments — everyone was so delightful and friendly and helpful and we enjoyed ourselves immensely! We were able to get eggs over easy; they had sauteed mushrooms that were so yummy with the eggs and perfectly done hash-​browns — wanted that this morning for breakfast lol
We will try our local one, now that I know there is one; I just hope they’re as good as this one in CDA! Keep on doing what you’re doing, guys — you do buffet right!

Normally I love Golden Corral. This was by far the worst I have ever experienced. Very basic items such as mashed potatoes and soup were not restocked the entire time we were there. You could tell some of the food had been setting there for a very long time. The set up didn’t seem to make much sense either. One of my favorite things to eat there are the rolls with the honey butter. couldn’t find the rolls… later found out that they were out and ended up getting some maybe 20 minutes later. went to get butter… and couldn’t find any… but eventually found the wrapped butter squares which was ok. Roll was dry and not very good at all. Ended with desert and found that the honey butter was actually available at the desert bar… cuz that makes sense right? lol
Bunch of complaints overall… but the steak cook actually did a pretty good job with his meat temperatures. Meat quality was pretty bad… my wife actually had a piece that was probably about 6 oz or so and it was entirely made up of fat. like seriously… nothing edible on it and she really tried to trim through the fat. I’m not sure I have seen a piece that big that was 100% fat and wondering why in the world they would cook and serve something like that.
Won’t ruin my overall opinion of Golden Corral… but this one was really really bad.

Definitely the worst Golden Corral I have been to. For what I paid, which was close to $ 15.00, I received very little. You should charge $ 5.00! Several food items were gone, and when I returned a half hour later, they still weren’t replenished. If you have an «all you can eat buffet», stock up on the necessities so this doesn’t happen! I’ve NEVER had this issue at the Golden Corral in Northern Spokane, which is a very professional and run establishment.
The food available was not pleasing or appetizing to look at, like it had been under heating lamps for hours. Old and not fresh looking. Didn’t have that just out of the oven look. The counters needed to be cleaned, with food all over them. The salad bar area was messy with vegetables laying on counter and salad dressing spilled outside of the containers. The building is fairly small, and was over flooded with too many people, like sardines in a can. The carpet needs a good cleaning and vacuuming! I will continue eating at the Golden Corral in Spokane. No comparison between the two restaurants and managers. The manager in Couerdalene should be fired and ashamed! I’ll never return!

Cashier was rude guess she didn’t like people being friendly. The food was overcooked and disgusting.
The salad bar most of the toppings were gone. The only thing edible was the fried chicken and jello. Waitress was nice.

It was great when first opened but now food is different:-(yeast rolls are dry, shrimp is tasteless, corn on the cob truly tasted like propane, they’ve taken away nutritional items like spinach at salad bar, corn muffins are very dry and hard, was not happy with meal.

Another great and generous business in this area that has offered my family a free meal after we had a fire that destroyed our home. This place has lots of options and have done a great job of posting food allergy alerts around different food. Our family really appreciates all the amazing supportive businesses here in cda!!!

Friendly staff and excellent food. Fresh and hot. They take pride in their restaurant. And are one of the best GC’s I’ve seen. and I see many. Thanks guys!

We thought it was great. We’ve never been to a Golden Corral I had salad, meat loaf baked beans and fruit it was great!!!
My son had pizza Mac and cheese and some treats afterwards. We have zero complaints and will def be coming back.
Place was clean, staff was kind and helpful it was really nice. If there’s a negative comment they must be pretty picky because there are so many choices none can make them happy? It was really nice

Pretty much a standard Golden Corral. Lots of choices as far as food goes, but nothing too flavorful that stands out. Although I did especially enjoy the dinner rolls and banana pudding, most of the food is somewhat bland. Place was clean and service was friendly.

I can’t believe I actually like this one LESS than the Spokane one. I didn’t think it was possible. The only real saving graces that typically stand out at GC in Spokane is their chocolate chip cookies (which this location can’t make right, they’re small, hard, and just gross) and baked potatoes…
Neither time I’ve been there has this location HAD baked potatoes out the entirety of my dining experience. What even? There was a place for them, and this last time we were there about an hour and never once were there baked potatoes. Also, no rolls and such to be found and they tend to be pretty good as well.
«Never say no to free food,» was a motto of one of my former teachers, and I’ve listened to it pretty regularly. Thus I’ve had this GC twice in the past month. I think next time I’m offered a free meal of GC… unless I have absolutely nothing at home and I am in dire need of food, you’ll have to count me out. I spent hours in the bathroom with severe stomach discomfort which left me feeling fatigued after how my food appeared to want to quickly evacuate my body.
The sauteed mushrooms had visible char on all of them, but even the ones I picked with barely anything tasted like burnt. That was it.
The ONLY saving grace of the entire meal is that they actually had chicken wings this time as advertised. I had three of the BBQ ones and they were good, but not enough to make me want to come here just for them.
The ham was awful, I took two bites and said «I just can’t…» and pushed the rest of my plate away. The first time I went the Brussels Sprouts tasted rotten so I didn’t even touch them this time. The Mandarin Orange Chicken had a gummy breading and was served in a heaping pile of onion slices, hardly any chicken was among the onion when I got there.
The server was slow to remove plates, but hey, it happens, it was busy and loud. Insanely loud, you’d think people thought they NEEDED to yell just to converse. It was awful.
The ice cream machine ran out of mix twice, and was left beeping it’s alarm in annoyance for a good 7 minutes the first time, and 4 the second. I wanted to just go back in the back and say «where’s the ice cream mix? Seriously, I will fill the machine for you just make it stop!!»
Our waters weren’t filled with any sort of urgency or care, leaving us sitting there thirsty as we ate our ‘meal.‘
The dessert buffet is told to have three different fountains, chocolate, caramel, and white chocolate. The caramel was down this day, but the white chocolate was working. Last time the caramel and chocolate worked but the white chocolate sat there with congealing white chocolate sitting in it with crumbled bits of whatever.
I had some star shaped pink cookie on a stick that I ran through the fountain, the cookie had the consistency of play-​dough but mildly cooked play-​dough. The chocolate didn’t give it any flavor and I couldn’t even tell you what kind of cookie it may have been. The part that I didn’t dip in chocolate had no taste that I could notice. Which is awfully concerning, had the rest of the meal damaged my taste buds?
A little apple wedge that was the least oxidized I could see was dipped in the chocolate as well, and… the chocolate doesn’t appear to have much of a taste either. Pretty sad for someone who loves chocolate.
A serving of their ‘molten chocolate lava’ cake left me wondering if perhaps I’d just eaten something made from baby food. Bland, mushy, gummy, and bizarre! Not even the vanilla soft serve could make this worth it.

Pardon my (non) français, but there is a LOT of shit to choose from when approaching the main heat tables at the Corral, and I mean that quite literally. So, it’s kind of a game where you eyeball an item and try to suss out whether or not it’s going to a) taste okay and b) give you a case of painful gastroenteritis. I suppose if you frequent the place (and many of the patrons I encountered seemed like they make it a daily event), you would kind of get to know what’s good and what’s full of hate. But I wasn’t even sure where to begin with it all, so I just took random grabs of this and that and hoped for the best.
Each item in brief: «Spicy Pagoda Pork». From the tiny «Asian» section, this was anything but spicy, anything but flavorful, and covered in some kind of spongy sliminess. The pork (I hope it was actually pork) was like chewing on a chunk of someone’s cold elbow. If it was possible for a food item to have the opposite of flavor, the Spring Roll, which surely came instead from the winter of our discontent, had it.
The Mac n Cheese was crying, CRYING, for some salt and once I did that it almost reached the front gate of the realm of frozen microwaved Stouffers Mac n Cheese. I do like Brussels sprouts, and these Brussels sprouts tasted pretty nice and buttery, but their texture was like a optical illusion for the mouth — it looked like a solid but was mushier on the palate than a jar of Gerbers.
Read my full review here:

We love the Golden Trough, it’s kind of a guilty pleasure we indulge in from time to time. We’ve been to various locations across the country and the experience is generally similar everywhere we’ve been.
That being said, our first visit to the new location in CdA has to be one of the least enjoyable trips to the Corral. We went in around 3:30p on a Wednesday, hoping to avoid busy meal hours. I don’t know when the «busier» times are, but I certainly wouldn’t want to experience them. I can’t recall a previous visit that was so crowded. The restaurant seemed a bit smaller than other locations, so the reduced buffet area may have contributed to the cramped feel. The tables also seemed to be rather crowded together, which is a really bad idea with the typical Golden Corral clientele…
The best I can offer is that the food was very good, when a scrap could be found. The steak was some of the best we’ve had at any location. All of our other favorites were also very well done.
Adding to the feeling of cattle jammed into a understaffed feedlot, the service was literally non-​existent. We didn’t even get a server, which has never happened previously. We had to flag down a random waiter just to get some water. If the food hadn’t been so good, I would swear to never return.
I hope they figure things out, so things can run a little more smoothly, but I don’t know what can be done about the crowding without an expansion of floor space. We still love the Corral, but I’m not sure when we’ll try this location again.

I was disgusted. The food wasn’t too bad, service was horrible. People who went there grossed me out, rude and no buffet etiquette. There was a waitress that kept helping tables around us, but she never made eye contact with us, we had a different waitress who did not keep our drinks full, and she never took away the dirty glasses. We were only two people and they had just opened AND it was a Wednesday, nothing special going on. It was ridiculous. I much rather have the china buffet down the street! Too bad, I was Looking forward to it being so close.