Today's restaurant review will be about two Southern chain restaurants.
Now first off, it's my duty to tell you that while they are Southern chains, apparently Golden Corral is nationwide, while Folks is only in Georgia.
I was informed that Folks was part of the Po' Folks chain of fine dining but wanted to get rid of the trash, became Folks in Georgia and stays Po' Folks in other states. I do believe they have the same food. I will say here though that I could not verify the information that they used to be Po' Folks. The two websites do not mention each other at all.
Okay, that was a little history on the first restaurant. Now to history on Golden Corral. Sadly it has a rather tarnished history. Mainly, a lot of food poisoning. A few years ago all of the Golden Corrals in Atlanta were shut down for several cases of food poisoning. All of the restaurants have been given clean bills of health, but I'll say the most noticeable change is that the food on the buffet counters are in much smaller bowls to come fresher from the kitchen. While that's nice, it also means they run out of food faster.
Folks serves up fine Southern Home Cookin'. Everything from Smothered Chicken Fried Steak, Chicken and Dumplins to catfish to my favorite, Fried Green Tomatoes. They also have every Southerners preferred meal choice - meat and two or three veggies. A "make it your own" plate. It's prices seem a bit high to me for it's home grown plates and I found everything to be extremely salty. The kid's plates are reasonable, and they do advertise a senior menu, but rather forgot to put on the website how much that might be.
But they do live up to their claim of having dern good Sweet Tea. The decor is really cute and Southern with knicknacks all around and pictures of cows and pigs and cute Southern sayings.
On to Golden Corral. It has no decor to speak of, they might have tried, but then gave up. It's a buffet, so in reality you're spending all your time looking at the food choices rather then pretty pictures.
You pay up front, sometimes there are people to help with the trays, sometimes not. The prices have gone up since they started offering steak every night and I'll say now, that I've not been there since the price hike since it lost it's family appeal with an over $9.00 menu. Plus another $2 for a drink. But if you're hungry....
They have all the Southern foods you can ask for. Usually there's a shrimp dish of some sort too. They have pizza, rolls, soup, salad, main dishes and a ginormous dessert bar. Sweet tea, coffee and soda only for beverages. If you pay the money and take advantage of the assortment of food, you will positively waddle out of there. I have many a time. The kids do love it since they can take little bits of the stuff they want and not get stuck with a plate of weird stuff. And since the dessert bar also offers ice cream toppers like Gummy Worms and M&Ms......
A waitress does come up and first and offer plates and forks and takes a drink order. Coffee is supposed to be offered 1/2 way through the meal, but sometimes you never see the waitress/waiter again. It does happen. They clear the tables when the plates become too high. You are expected to tip though often I wasn't sure why. They all seem to hate their job. Perhaps no one tips?
These two restaurants I would recommend if you want to "fill your gullet". They offer straight vittles. But if you want anything more than food in front of you, go elsewhere.