| | |  | BY TYLER WEYANT | Presented by Facebook | With help from Joanne Kenen
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A Golden Corral restaurant in Pittsburgh, Pa. | Photo by Can Pac Swire/Flickr | IS THE CORRAL OK? If journalists swamped Midwestern diners to the point of absurdity to understand America in 2016, perhaps they should travel to a Golden Corral to understand 2021. Nightly ventured outside of the Beltway — literally, 0.2 miles outside in Largo, Md. — to visit Golden Corral, a nationwide chain of all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants known for homestyle cooking and portions-a-plenty. What we found was a restaurant in the same place as the country: Coming out of a huge economic crisis, using confusing levels of Covid protocols and trying to return to a normal that may never be coming back. I am not someone who’s just jumping to a Golden Corral for a singular lifetime stop. I grew up going in summers with my grandmother and friends, sometimes weekly. I know my way around the salad bar, and have dipped many a dessert in a chocolate fountain. To this day, our family has an inside joke about someone nearly breaking a tooth on a hardened Rice Krispies Treat covered in ice cream. Golden Corral today feels like a different place than the restaurant I grew up with . At the Largo location, you enter by signing a contact tracing page. We sat at tables exceptionally distanced by multiple blocked off areas. We were handed a glove, then a plate, and then we headed for the somewhat limited buffet options (enough mac & cheese to fill a tray, yes; self-serve ice cream, no; chocolate fountain, yes, but an employee dips the dessert for you). “Our business model is forever affected by the pandemic,” Golden Corral President and CEO Lance Trenary said in an interview with Nightly. When federal and local guidelines forced Golden Corral to close all its restaurants in March 2020 (a move Trenary felt was unfair, due to what he called the chain’s “good safety and sanitation” measures), the company started deferring franchisees’ royalty payments, working with suppliers to bring down costs, and immediately started to reimagine the future of buffet dining. Today, you’ll find the locations across 42 states at various levels of operation: Some, like Largo, are open more or less normally. In states like California, New Mexico and Kentucky, local regulations have kept buffets closed. And in some spots, the restaurants have turned to a cafeteria style, with all items served by employees. To adapt, Golden Corral has become a little more unfamiliar to its core audience, the 35 percent of customers who eat at the restaurant 70 times or more a year. To-go and curbside pick-up. A la carte entrée options. The testing of alcohol options. Trenary believes limited alcohol offerings will be a part of the future of the company, while still attempting to maintain a family atmosphere. Golden Corral recently partnered with Icee for a frozen Jack and Coke drink. Maintaining the spirit of the chain is something “we literally talk about every day,” Trenary said. “We do believe that we have to evolve. We do believe we have to innovate and disrupt. Dining habits are going to be forever changed,” he said. “But that does not mean that we give up our DNA.” Experts aren’t as optimistic about the restaurant’s future, however. John Gordon, a San Diego-based restaurant analyst, said traffic trends for buffets had been falling since the late 1990s. “In nearly all restaurants currently, you can’t even get salt or pepper shakers,” Gordon wrote in an email to Nightly. “My opinion and that of my analyst peers is that the buffet model is dead for now,” he added. Does Gordon see a Golden Corral Summer for a nation of hungry people eager to gorge themselves after a year living indoors? “I never say never in this business, as trends come back, but it seems to me much time must pass before the health boards and customer attitudes are forgiving.” So that’s a no. But don’t tell that to the woman asking if she could have extra gloves at the plate station, or the kids enjoying a brownie and maskless moment. I had walked into Golden Corral thinking it would be the riskiest thing I’d done in the last 15 months. I left with a sense that Americans everywhere are just looking to grasp onto life before Covid any way they can. And, if they have the chance, maybe some buttery rolls. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. You won’t find me in the buffet line this weekend. Rather, I’ll be decked in Baltimore Orioles gear all weekend for the Nats-O’s series here in D.C. I’ll be the one shouting about how Chris Davis should be in the team’s Hall of Fame. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at tweyant@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com , or on Twitter at @tweyant and @renurayasam.
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A message from Facebook: The internet has changed a lot since 1996 - internet regulations should too
It's been 25 years since comprehensive internet regulations passed. See why we support updated regulations on key issues, including:
– Protecting people’s privacy
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– Preventing election interference
– Reforming Section 230 | | | | | — White House cuts infrastructure proposal to $1.7 trillion, but GOP rebuffs: The Biden administration today said it was slashing the price tag on an infrastructure proposal by more than $500 billion in an attempt to win Republican support. But the offer was received with scorn by Senate Republicans, who argue it’s still too high and accused the White House of accounting gimmicks, leaving the two sides far apart and drifting even further as an informal deadline for a deal nears. — Union: Dozens of U.S. Capitol Police have left since Jan. 6 attack: More than 70 U.S. Capitol Police officers have left the force in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and the department’s union says that the $1.9 billion supplemental funding package is insufficient to stave off further departures. — Dems plead for more security cash as threats rise: House Democrats this week tried to do something about the rise in personal safety risks for lawmakers after the insurrection, approving a roughly $2 billion package to bolster the Capitol Police, fund the National Guard and secure the sprawling complex. Congress’ most forceful response yet to the Capitol siege also includes what many members have sought for years: more help paying for their protection. — Ethiopia expels journalist who reported on atrocities in Tigray: Early this morning, the Ethiopian government expelled Simon Marks, a journalist for the New York Times, POLITICO and other outlets, who recently reported on atrocities allegedly committed by the Ethiopian military and its allies in the northern Tigray region. Ethiopia, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, gave no explanation for the sudden deportation of Marks, a dual British and Irish citizen, who had worked in the country for nearly two years.
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| | SUBSCRIBE TO WEST WING PLAYBOOK: Add West Wing Playbook to keep up with the power players, latest policy developments and intriguing whispers percolating inside the West Wing and across the highest levels of the Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | Nightly asked you: What small pandemic change have you witnessed recently that surprised and delighted you? Your select, lightly edited responses are below: “I got to pick out my own towels at the gym. During the pandemic, the towels were kept behind the counter and the person handing it to you was wearing gloves.” — Sandy Peters, behavior therapist, Cary, N.C. “I am a coffee snob — no fast-food or gas station coffee for me. My morning brew has to come from a small neighborhood coffee shop. And I like it with a very specific amount of sweetener added. I dribble a little sweetener in, then taste it and add slightly more if needed, then taste again, and so on, until it’s ‘Goldilocks just right.’ So imagine my delight when I stopped in for a cup and saw that the sweetener packets are once again on the counter for me to access directly.” — Dave Etienne, marketing and communications director, Fort Thomas, Ky. “Publix has resumed giving kids free sugar cookies at its bakery counter!” — Natalie Shrock, nurse practitioner, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. “Being able to hug someone and shake hands again. It was like piercing the veil.” — Adam Lees, seminarian, Anchorage, Alaska “At last, I can carry my own reusable grocery bags into the supermarket.” — Carol Watts, retired, Overland Park, Kan. “Tastings (or sampling) at my local liquor store!” — Andrew Bloom, consultant, Minneapolis
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| | | | | MASKING THE TOUGH QUESTIONS — Brooke Minters leads us through the Weekend Wrap of the latest in political satire and cartoons on CDC mask guidance, the Jan. 6 commission and the continued reopening of U.S. businesses and institutions.
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14 percent The percentage increase in matches of people who are vaccinated or plan to get vaccinated on OKCupid compared to those who don’t plan to get vaccinated, according to research from the dating service referenced by the White House. |
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| | JOIN TUESDAY FOR A CONVERSATION ON AMERICA'S MATERNAL HEALTH CRISIS: The maternal and infant mortality rates in the U.S. have been rising, especially for women and babies of color. One year into the pandemic, how have social determinants of health contributed to maternal and child health outcomes for Black women and other women of color? Join POLITICO for a deep-dive conversation for which we'll use Illinois as a case study to understand how social determinants of health and Covid-19 complicate efforts to eliminate maternal and infant mortality. We will also explore the various public health and policy solutions to reduce racial disparities during pregnancy and postpartum. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | TAKE ME HOME, COUNTRY ROADS — Health care editor at large Joanne Kenen emails Nightly: Each spring since 2006, my family has joined about 100 (!) friends at a state park in West Virginia to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. For the world at large, Shavuot is not as well known as Passover or Chanukah. But for our kids, who grew up with this as a highlight of their year, it’s a big deal. We observe the holiday rituals and traditions, but we also walk, hike, bike, paddle boat, swim, do yoga, play frisbee and baseball and have a multigenerational, multilingual campfire singalong. We eat a lot. We have baking contests, so we eat some more. There’s a fair amount of afternoon napping. Covid forced us to cancel last year, of course. It broke our hearts. This year, a scaled back, highly vaccinated crowd returned, and we mostly stayed outdoors. For most of us, it was the first time we had interacted with more than a few people for well over a year. For many, it was the first time they unmasked, and saw smiles. As we watched the kids who once rode around on tricycles and training wheels (they’re mostly now in their late teens and early 20s, with a few outliers on both sides), we realized nothing could possibly have been more healing as they emerge from the pandemic. This is their magical place where, growing up, the girls and boys played nicely, where the seventh graders were nice to the fifth graders who were nice to the third graders. Where kids run in and out of each other’s cabins (in bygone years, sometimes in pajamas) and actually want to spend time with their families. They were so happy to see each other. Two years was a chasm, filled with some pretty traumatic stuff, and yet the chasm vanished in an instant. For the adults, we felt joy and tranquility and gratitude. But there was also a sucker punch. Oh, we were as thrilled as the kids were to be there, to connect, to talk, to pray, to sit on a porch, to savor the fresh country air. Yet for many of us, it was also a moment where the weight of the past year — the trauma and worry and loss and deprivation — made itself felt. We are the lucky ones. We survived. But even the lucky ones were not unscathed. It was, we kept telling one another, a very hard year.
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A message from Facebook: Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations
2021 is the 25th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the last major update to internet regulation. It’s time for an update to set clear rules for addressing today's toughest challenges.
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