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Golden Corral Revels in Trouncing the Competition
July 31, 2007

A Notch Above: Golden Corral restaurants celebrate when competitors like Ryan’s or HomeTown close shop.

Do restaurant chains formally celebrate knocking off competitors? Apparently Golden Corral does. I stumbled across this curious fact last week while researching a story on buffet chains.

After finishing dinner at a Ryan’s in Akron, Ohio, I discovered a Golden Corral unit a half-mile away. I pulled into the lot and once inside fell into conversation with a young assistant manager. The manager winced when I mentioned I’d eaten at Ryan’s.

Then the manager told me that the company bonused managers when a nearby direct competitor closed. The implication: The restaurant was hoping to shutter the older Ryan’s next door.

Assuming the Golden Corral belonged to corporate, I called CEO Ted Fowler, who told me the unit in Akron was operated by Cincinnati-based Frisch’s, a growing franchisee with more than 20 grill-and-buffet restaurants. He said he didn’t know if the franchisee paid managers a bonus when a competitor closed.

Corporate-run Golden Corrals, however, do celebrate the closing of competitors, Fowler said. When one closes, the company gives its units a “Notch in the Gun Award,” though no money is given to the staff. He added it is one of many restaurant-level awards.

Later, I e-mailed Frisch’s COO Rinzy Nocero, a veteran operator who joined Frisch’s earlier this year from Bob Evans Farms. I asked him if his company offered the same award, only with money. “ We do not offer monetary compensation for closing stores,” he replied. He didn’t mention the “Notch in the Gun Award.”

More recently, managers at two Golden Corrals in Greater Cleveland—both Frisch’s-operated—said they hadn’t heard of the “Notch in the Gun Award” or anything about a bonus for shuttering a nearby competitor.

Former Buffets Inc. CEO Kerry Kramp doesn’t like the idea of celebrating the demise of a competitor. Yet he acknowledges that some restaurants do a better job executing than others, and that can lead to a closing, especially in smaller markets. Still, he’d rather give an award to the staff for, say, high customer satisfaction scores than one for shrinking the market. “I was never a fan of trying to cut out another restaurant,” he said

Posted by David Farkas on July 31, 2007 | Comments (2)