This national restaurant chain celebrating 50 years started as a Bragg Boulevard steakhouse

On Jan. 3, 1973, two business partners with a shoestring budget and a vision to become a household name nationwide opened a family steakhouse on Bragg Boulevard in Fayetteville.

It was the “mama” store that spawned the Golden Corral buffet restaurant franchise, now celebrating 50 years in business with hundreds of locations across the country; a success story rivaled by few in the industry.

Founders James Maynard and William Carl were living in Raleigh when they conceived the idea for the first Golden Corral. They met while working for Burroughs Corp. With Fayetteville's reputation as a robust business market, Maynard said, they knew the city would be ideal for the first restaurant.

The pair and six other investors pooled $50,000 to open the 5,000-square-foot brick steakhouse, situated on a 1-acre gravel lot that had yet to be paved because the men were so eager to open, Maynard said. Next door was a Burger King, and an International House of Pancakes soon followed.

A corral separated the 150-seat dining room from the queue of customers waiting to place their orders at the counter. The main offering, a 7-ounce steak with a baked potato and salad, was $1.69, Maynard said last week. The steaks, including ham steak, were cooked to order and delivered to the diners at their table.

Competition was steep, Maynard said. The state’s first Kentucky Fried Chicken was just a couple blocks away, and Fayetteville was home to chain steakhouses that later incorporated a buffet like Ponderosa on Bonanza Drive and the since-closed Western Sizzlin’ on Raeford Road.

Still, the first Golden Corral immediately turned a profit, thanks to a loyal crowd of regulars and a prominent location along one of the busiest highways in the state. In 1981, Maynard called Bragg Boulevard a “river of gold.” The city's first Hardee's, McDonald's, Bojangles, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants were all built there.

Golden Corral locations opened on Raeford Road and McPherson Church Road, but by 1994 all three had closed to make way for a much larger Golden Corral on Skibo Road in Cross Creek Plaza. That location still stands today.

By the early '90s, Bragg Boulevard had lost its luster, with some businesses moving from the boulevard to developments like Cross Creek Mall and Westwood Shopping Center or shutting down altogether.

Still, closing the store known as the “mama” and “number one” store among the Golden Corral family was an emotional occasion.

"We really never thought it would happen,'' waitress Esther Swiderski told The Observer in 1994. At the time she'd worked at the restaurant for two decades.

Like the mother it was said to be, the Bragg Boulevard location carried the load for the young chain when its two offspring on McPherson Church Road and Raeford Road struggled financially for several years.

“It carried the day for us for a long time,” Maynard told The Observer in 1994. “If that one had not been too successful, we probably would not have been able to continue.''

Maynard said that throughout the late '80s and early '90s, all 500 of the chain’s restaurants were replaced with larger ones that were better poised to compete against Ryan's, a restaurant with self-service buffets and large buildings that started popping up at the time.

Golden Corral's transition from an entree-based menu to a buffet model in the late '80s, with a focus on more pasta and salad options, helped accommodate the American palate, which was turning away from red meat based on health officials’ recommendations, Maynard said.

A Ramsey Street location opened in the late 1990s but closed before 2017. It was replaced by Fred Chason's Grandsons Carolina Famous Buffet. That restaurant closed in 2021, and now a 7-Eleven convenience store and gas station is planned at the property.

Throughout all the changes of the last half-century, Maynard said last week he still has warm feelings toward Golden Corral’s hometown.

“We’ve never had a city support our restaurant the way that Fayetteville has,” he said.

Food, dining and business reporter Taylor Shook can be reached at tshook@gannett.com. Want food news in your inbox every Thursday? Sign up for the Fayetteville Foodies newsletter.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville, NC-founded Golden Corral celebrates 50 year anniversary