Wasn’t Golden Corral already in Fresno? News of popular buffet sparks wave of nostalgia

Oh, nostalgia.

It has a way of getting people excited about things.

For instance, the 50-year-old buffet chain restaurant Golden Corral opening a brand-new location in Fresno. Well, not opening, exactly, more like hinting at an opening by listing a franchised location as “coming soon” on its website. There is also work being done inside a restaurant location on West Shaw Avenue near Marty.

But even news of the progress was met with hundreds of comments on social media and emails to The Bee.

“Hallelujah,” to quote one.

“My husband and I have been wishing for a Golden Corral in Fresno for a long time. We last visited one near Ogden, Utah in 2019 while on vacation.”

What is Golden Corral?

The first Golden Corral opened as a family steakhouse in 1973, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and within a decade the chain was expanding at a rate of one restaurant per week, mostly into smaller towns with populations of 15,000 to 50,000.

That’s according to an advertisement in the Hanford Sentinel newspaper from 1981.

Hanford’s Golden Corral Family Steakhouse was on Lacey Boulevard and boasted a “meat and potatoes menu” with “fresh, USDA choice beef cut daily.”

There was also a “famous 29 item salad bar.”

By 1985, the restaurant had added a potato bar. It was free with any entree and featured a 12-ounce (or more) potato and a range of topping choices: bacon bits, grated cheese, cheese sauce, mushrooms, whipped margarine, chili and brown gravy.

Longtime Valley residents might also fondly remember the Golden Corral Family Steakhouse in Reedley. It operated in a shopping center on Manning Avenue near a Kmart until both places closed in 1995.

By then, the chain had upped the size of its restaurant locations and was well transitioned into the buffet business. The Reedley restaurant wasn’t meeting revenue goals, according to a story in The Fresno Bee.

Do you remember a Golden Corral in Fresno?

Oddly, some people seem to recall Fresno having a Golden Corral buffet once upon a time.

That’s likely a bit of misremembering.

There was a location near Fresno, on Shaw at Villa Avenue — in Clovis.

That spot was taken over by Mitsui Buffet in 2011.

There was also the similar HomeTown Buffet, which had locations in Clovis and in Fresno. The Clovis restaurant closed in 2016. The Fresno location closed during the pandemic.

Golden Corral will open in its place. Eventually.