By Jesse Wood
Jan. 21, 2014. The Golden Corral, located near Walmart in Boone, recently closed for good.
A sign posted on the door Tuesday said “Sorry, We’re Closed. Please visit our nearest locations … Hickory, Wilkesboro, Winston-Salem.”
GC Partners operated the Boone location along with several more in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. The Boone location opened in 2001.
Dave Gronewoller, president of GC Partners, said on Tuesday afternoon that “the cost of business just got too big.”
He said a “major contributor” to the operation failing was the lack of “main-road” signage along U.S. 321 that town regulations prevented. Gronewoller mentioned that GC Partners unsuccessfully appealed multiple times to the town years back.
“You could be staying at the hotel across the street and you wouldn’t know we were there,” Gronewoller said. “We [operate] in three states and have never run up against [regulations like] that before.”
About four years ago, Gronewoller said GC Partners invested nearly $4 million dollars in the Boone location.
“We tried everything we could to make that restaurant successful,” Gronewoller continued.
(The Boone Fire Department responded to a call at the Golden Corral on Jan. 11, but Capt. Mike Teague said “minimal damage” resulted from a small fire caused by an electrical short. He added that the fire department took care of the incident in less than 10 minutes from the dispatch. Gronewoller mentioned that the fire had nothing to do with the closing.)
The Boone location Golden Corral Facebook page informed readers of the closure yesterday. See below:
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