Golden Corral: What? No! We Don't Serve Dumpster Food Exactly

Golden Corral doesn’t serve its customers food stored beside dumpsters. Any claims to the contrary are false, and any videos that allege as much are only half truths that don’t get across the entire story. At least that’s the message Golden Corral owner Eric Holm tried to get across yesterday in one of the most ill-conceived and idiotic attempts at damage control the food industry has ever seen.

Here’s a look at what was posted on the company’s official Facebook page

Eric Holm, owner of the Port Orange, FL Golden Corral restaurant, commented:Golden Corral Corporation and I take great pride in maintaining high standards of food quality, sanitation and guest experience. The Port Orange incident was a result of the Associate Manager making a bad decision to improperly store food when the corporate inspector made a routine, unannounced visit to the restaurant. I apologize that a member of my management team made this bad decision.To be clear, this inspection was conducted by Golden Corral Corporation. Brandon Huber did notify my area manager of the issue, and we acted swiftly to dispose of all the improperly stored foods. No guest was served any of this food that was handled improperly.Brandon Huber actually assisted in the disposal of the food items the day before he posted the videos. I am personally disappointed that Mr. Huber chose to post the videos and make false statements after the situation was corrected.I have a fantastic team of 110 hard-working people at the Port Orange restaurant. Again, I apologize for this unfortunate incident.

The incident in question he’s referring to is seen in the video at the top of the post. During a routine inspection from Golden Corral’s corporate office, a manager or managers wheeled a bunch of the meat outside and placed it by a dumpster. An employee, Brandon Huber, took a video of the incident and notified his bosses. If Brandon and other employees are to be believed, the food was wheeled back inside once the inspection was completed. Afterwards, Brandon allegedly refused to cook the dumpster food, but once he left, some are alleging the food was once again wheeled out, cooked and served.

Regardless of what the specifics actually are, the incident has shocked and horrified millions of people. If this food was actually going to be thrown away, it seems ludicrous it would have been left inside expensive pots and pans by the dumpster, and had Brandon not blown the whistle, it does seem like at least that one manager was hellbent on serving it. One would have thought Golden Corral corporate would have run out ahead of this story and released a vicious and sweeping indictment of how the entire Port Orange franchise was being run, but to this point, that hasn’t happened.

There have always been and will always be safety issues in the food industry. That’s damn near impossible to get around because of how many companies are involved in the chain of production and how dangerous food can sometimes be, but there’s a big difference between an honest mistake and blatantly ignoring common sense health standards.

With this story showing no signs of dying, I would expect the corporate office to begin getting more aggressive sooner rather than later. Until then, here’s the picture of Golden Corral executives would rather you have…

Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.