My decision to return to North Carolina had many factors, but the K&W cafeteria was maybe 20% of the reason. Waffle House and Krispy Kreme also mattered.
Since getting married, I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to go to K&W, or the Golden corral buffet. Going to Vietnamese restaurants to get pho, going to a Chinese restaurant or going to a Greek restaurant to get hummus was what my ex-wife preferred, despite having said that she wanted to be a “good Southern wife”. You can take the woman out of New Jersey, but you can’t take the New Jersey out of the woman. Long time readers have known about my concern of people from New Jersey moving to Charlotte, long before I met my wife.
To be fair, the old man who created K&W died a few years ago, and the second generation is doing the predictable things. They were finding ways to reduce the quality and increase the price. The loyal women who had probably been content to cook macaroni and cheese for 30 years faded away. My sense is they centralized the cooking and the individual cafeterias were just reheating stuff – maybe that is how it always was. So it wasn’t quite as good as it used to be.
Bankruptcy does not necessarily mean they are going out of business, just that some of the units are closing. Usually one of the things that happens in bankruptcy is the company gets out of its long-term leases.
But the bankruptcy process may demand that the company make changes, which usually means increased prices and reduced quality, so my expectation is that in a year or two it will be completely gone.
Sad. Living in New England, I've obviously never hear of them. Sounds like a good place though. Would have been nice to visit. You're probably right about the locations just reheating stuff. Dunkin doesn't make donuts in their stores since I don't know how long.
30ish years ago there was another Cafeteria operator called Morrison’s Cafeteria. Every place we drove we would look for one – they tended to be in malls, which makes it hard to make a profit.
Stouffer’s, the red box frozen food company used to operate restaurants in shopping venues. We went to one in Pittsburgh in the 1960s, but they faded away. The restaurant business is not easy to survive.
I think my parents took me to a 'Morrisons' a long time ago. Could have been in Catonsville, Maryland, ( Baltimore suburb) .
Shop Vac corporation in Williamsport PA has closed its doors. Out of business.
Hope K&W can re-organize. That K&W in Roanoke VA is busy every time we go by there. The RV industry is booming in this recession. The recession in 07-08 just about wiped them out. strange times.
I saw some signs pop up in Roanoke VA where people support dementia Joe and the 'BuffaloGal' Kamela. Man, we could make up some great Poll questions with this race!
Best regards
parrott
On a positive note, I learned today that the Golden Corral Buffet in Greensboro has reopened and offering both pickup and delivery and dining room. Of the ways I consume food, Golden Buffet is by far the healthiest. I used Grubhub for delivery and it all worked out fine.
Next door is the Cracker Barrel, which has been doing curbside pickup for a while.
There is a K&W here somewhere, but I remember it being an unpleasant experience. The person who circulates refilling your water, etc completely ignored me until he saw I was getting up to leave.