From fast food to all-you-can-eat. The St. Mary’s County Planning Commission has on its April 9 agenda a concept site plan for a Golden Corral Restaurant at the site of the former McDonald’s on MD 235 (Three Notch Road) in Lexington Park.
The 3.42 acre property is owned by Aldridge Ford, Inc. The proposed restaurant would be 11,087 square feet. The McDonald’s moved further up the road with a new store in front of K-Mart in California.
Golden Corral is a national chain of more than 480 locations, of which more than 100 are company owned. It was founded in 1971 by James Maynard and William Carl. Their first location was in Fayetteville, NC.
The chain has not a rocky history. With falling sales I the late 1980’s they added a salad bar and an expanded buffet. In the 1990’s they doubled the size of their restaurants, which typically now seat between 400 and 450 guests. Their latest store variant is called “Strata” rolled out in the mid-2000s that allows guests to serve themselve with such item as Belgian waffles, omelets and char-broiled steaks.
Golden Corral’s website says the company is especially proud of their USDA sirloin, aged and hand cut daily by the restaurant’s own butchers. The website says of the company’s Vision: “Our vision remains to be the leader in the family describes their restaurant segment by making pleasurable dining affordable for every guest, at every moment, every day.”
The Golden Corral would be the first buffet style restaurant (other than Chinese) in St. Mary’s County since the demise of a restaurant where the Wawa now sits at the intersection of Routes 4 and 235.
Land is currently being cleared for a Cracker Barrel Restaurant on Route 235 next to Red Robin and a Longhorn Steakhouse is also planned for a site across from First Colony.
