Golden Corral names new CEO

While the millions of customers who visit Golden Corral each year won’t recognize the name of its new CEO, they are probably familiar with some of the products he introduced to the chain’s dining experience.

Golden Corral introduced the flowing fountains of chocolate and caramel in its restaurants after Lance Trenary, then the company’s chief operating officer, passed an Asian restaurant buffet in Indianapolis with a line of people out the door waiting to dip a stick with fruit in a chocolate fountain.

On Jan. 1, Trenary took over as president and chief executive officer of the Raleigh-based Golden Corral, the nation’s leading grill and buffet chain that served 175 million people in 2014.

Trenary is the third CEO for the company, which opened its first restaurant in Fayetteville in 1973. Golden Corral now has 501 locations in 41 states, including 399 franchisee-owned restaurants. About 171 employees work out of the company’s Raleigh-based support center.

Company founder James Maynard served first in the top position, followed by Ted Fowler, who was CEO for 25 years before he retired at the end of 2014.

The company’s retirement program sets 65 as the maximum age for officers. Fowler, 65, will serve on the board of directors for Investors Management Corp., a privately held Raleigh holding company that was founded by Maynard.

Maynard said that Trenary is the perfect choice to lead the company.

“He has held virtually every key position and successfully managed the departments that are the core of the business,” Maynard said in a statement provided by the company.

Trenary, 54, has worked for Golden Corral 29 years and served as the company’s chief operating officer since 2011. Trenary got his start in the restaurant business at age 9, when he was washing dishes for his father’s Pizza Hut restaurant in Mississippi. Trenary started working at a Golden Corral in Mississippi as a restaurant partner manager and climbed the corporate ladder to Raleigh.

As the new CEO, Trenary said he plans to build on brand staples, such as variety and value, working to expand the company’s reach beyond the buffet sector and pull in customers visiting casual dining and family restaurants.

For years, Golden Corral has dominated the buffet category, claiming about 30 percent market share in the sector. But when Maynard and William Carl opened in 1973, it started as a steak restaurant with the mission “to make pleasurable dining affordable.”

When Golden Corral began to stumble in the 1980s, its executives started testing the larger, buffet-driven restaurants that they ultimately used to compete with companies such as Ryan’s.

That approach, and other efforts, revitalized Golden Corral, and the company set a record year in 2012 with systemwide sales reaching nearly $1.8 billion. Annual sales have been flat the past two years.

Trenary linked the stagnation to the overall economy and the lack of new ideas Golden Corral offered to consumers.

“I don’t think our innovation was strong enough,” he said. “If you are not constantly doing something new, the guests will let you know” by going somewhere else to eat.

Trenary said he hopes to spur improvement by emphasizing the company’s healthy eating options, finding ways to customize food preparation for customers and exploring building a Golden Corral outside of the U.S., possibly as soon as 2016.

“What I don’t want to do is change the culture of the company,” he said, which puts an emphasis on internal talent and community initiatives, such as camps and programs for veterans and their children.

Some of the anticipated changes include adding bold-tasting items and emphasizing already available healthy options on the buffet, such as the salad bar, as well as no-sugar-added and gluten-free options. About three months ago, the company rolled out a program that put 20 fresh vegetables on the buffet line.

The company is also exploring opportunities to customize food preparation for customers, possibly through a Mongolian-style ordering and cooking station that is being tested in its Raleigh restaurant on Glenwood Avenue.

But the innovation needs to extend beyond the buffet options, Trenary said.

Golden Corral is exploring building smaller stores in major metropolitan areas where real estate options are limited, as well as in smaller markets.

“One of the things that we want to accomplish is building a prototype for every size market,” he said.

Golden Corral is also exploring allowing guests to order items from a menu once again, a concept that it is testing in Jacksonville, Fla.

“We want to give the guest total freedom to make that dining experience theirs,” he said.

This story was originally published January 8, 2015 at 8:00 PM with the headline "Golden Corral names new CEO."