Do Any Golden Corral Locations Serve Alcohol?

If you're craving classic American comfort food, you'll have plenty of options when you eat at buffet chain Golden Corral, whether it be fried chicken, meatloaf, mac and cheese, or other homestyle favorites. But what if you want to wash down your meal with a glass of alcohol? Depending on the location, you may be able to. After years of not doing so, in 2021, due to popular demand, Golden Corral finally decided to add alcoholic beverages to its drink menu. Alcohol however is only available at a handful of Golden Corrals, and there are certain restrictions that come along with ordering it.

While all the food served at Golden Corral is all-you-can-eat, unfortunately, when it comes to the alcohol, it isn't all-you-can-drink. Customers are also only allowed to order two alcoholic drinks each, and there are no refills. If you have a Golden Corral rewards account, you can't earn points for any alcohol purchases either.

Golden Corral doesn't specify on its website which locations serve alcohol, however you can easily find out by calling ahead. To find the contact info of your local Golden Corral, simply enter your zipcode on the Locations section of the website and navigate to Restaurant Info. The alcohol offerings vary from location to location, but typically the restaurant will have a selection of frozen margaritas, daiquiris, beer, and wine. If the Golden Corral serves both alcohol and Icees, it may have Jack and Coke Icees as an option as well.

Golden Corral states on its website that the menu items are subject to change, and it's clear that applies to both the food and the drinks. According to TikToks from different customers, some locations have larger alcohol menus that include hard seltzers, mixed drinks, and classic cocktails including Long Island iced teas, mojitos, whisky sours, bloody marys, and mimosas. Other locations meanwhile, just have beer bottles at the self-serve fountain drink station.

Since opening in 1973, Golden Corral has prided itself in fostering a family friendly dining environment. In fact, its slogan is "The Only One For Everyone," emphasizing that everyone in the family can find something they like when dining at Golden Corral. This is precisely why it took the restaurant chain so long to put alcohol on the menu, Golden Corral CEO Lance Trenary revealed in an episode of  podcast "A Deeper Dive."

Even when Golden Corral first introduced alcohol at its restaurants in 2021, it wasn't a nationwide rollout. Instead, alcohol was only made available in select markets. When restaurants do this, it's to gauge popularity with customers and to determine how well it might be received if it were to be a permanent fixture to the menu. Ultimately it seems Golden Corral opted to maintain limited alcohol availability, striking a balance between accommodating certain customers' preferences while preserving its family-oriented identity.