Palate loader: new CEO Lance Trenary wants to pack the nation's dominant buffet chain with diners seeking more than a hunk of beef.

• Author: Burns, Matthew
• Position: Cover story

We feed middle America," Lance Trenary says matter-of-factly as the crowd grows at a super-sized Golden Corral restaurant in Raleigh. It's only 3 p.m. on a Monday, but already dozens of men preparing for a long night on the job, retirees grabbing an early-bird dinner special and a few families with restless young children are weaving their way through Lighthouse Bay, The Piazza and other sections of a 30-yard-long buffet, loading brightly colored plates with everything from shrimp to burritos to brownies.

This isn't your grandfather's steakhouse, where a medium-rare ribeye, a baked potato topped with butter and sour cream, a salad and some peach cobbler were standard fare. Golden Corral is an all-you-can-eat bonanza, offering more than 200 items on its self-described "endless buffet." The current version is aimed to give diners anything and everything they want, says Trenary, president and CEO of the Raleigh-based chain since January. "We want to excite people about what a buffet can offer. It's not just a heavy meal. The experience can be high-quality food and a variety of products."

As Golden Corral's first new CEO in 26 years, Trenary is poised to speed growth at a company that dominates its slice of the restaurant-industry pie. During former CEO Ted Fowler's tenure, Golden Corral flipped from owning more than 90% of its restaurants to the current makeup in which 75% of its 498 restaurants are franchised. But today's versions are much bigger and busier as the company has pushed into more populated metro areas and attracted more breakfast business. Sales have increased by 90% to $1.8 billion since 2000, with the chain's units serving an average of 6,500 to 7,000 diners per week. Its buffets average more than $3.5 million a year, more than all but a handful of the largest U.S. restaurant chains, while the average $10 per visit paid by diners brings in several dollars more than many fast-food rivals, says Billy Sewell, CEO of Jacksonville-based Platinum Corral, the chain's second-largest franchisee with 26 restaurants in six states.

The company has repeatedly remade itself during its 42-year history to outpace rivals and attract more than 3 million customers each week. With $50,000 raised from investors, James Maynard and a partner opened the first Golden Corral in Fayetteville in 1973, mimicking the affordable steak dinners offered by rivals such as Western Sizzlin' and Ponderosa. Buffets were added in 1988, modeled after Greer, S.C.-based Ryan's Family Steak Houses Inc., which had started the concept a couple of years earlier as diners demanded more choices and more salad offerings. In 1999, three of the nation's 50 biggest restaurant chains were buffets: Golden Corral (32nd), Ponderosa/Bonanza (41st) and Ryan's (44th), while Western Sizzlin' and Quincy's trailed. In Nation's Restaurant News' latest rankings of the largest U.S.-based restaurant chains in 2014, Golden Corral still ranked 32nd. No other buffet restaurant is in the top 50, and Golden Corral's sales are almost six times greater than the next largest buffet chain, HomeTown Buffet, which is owned by Ovation Brands Inc. Ovation, now based in Greer, bought Ryan's in 2006 and operates 328 restaurants under six names.

Sewell says Golden Corral's success stems from its variety of fresh foods, efforts to change the ambience of restaurants and decisions to oust ineffective franchisees. Rivals didn't keep up because they served too much frozen food, turning off customers, he says. Much of Golden Corral's food preparation is now visible, so customers see cooks slicing and dicing. The dinner-theater choreography of moving ingredients to different stations and then cutting, mixing, baking and frying while customers serve themselves is a key element of Golden Corral's brand, Trenary says. "We want people to know that they're not eating dishes that have been processed or been frozen and reheated, and we think customers appreciate being able to see that--and taste it." Making effective...