I had the opportunity of a lifetime - the modern-day equivalent of Willy Wonka's golden ticket.

A colleague presented me with not one, but TWO tickets for a free buffet and drink for myself and a guest at the grand re-opening of the Golden Corral on Glenwood Avenue.

This wasn't going to be an ordinary night of salisbury steaks and soft-serve - the new and improved restaurant now offers make-your-own doughnuts and a chocolate fountain.

But no one would go with me. Not even my wife, who more than a year ago vowed to stay with me through thick and thin, sickness and health, doughnuts and liquid chocolate.

No colleagues accepted, either. Jason Foster, our new North Raleigh News editor, has been here five weeks but already acts like he's from Cary - too elite to dine among us mere mortals at North Raleigh's foremost food free-for-all.

A populist, he is not. I guess they don't have buffets in Rock Hill.

Why didn't I fly solo, you ask? Because as much as I love a Blue Plate Special or three, it's not cool to dine alone at any place that doesn't have a drive-through window. I hope that feature's coming soon.

The Golden Corral restaurant at 6129 Glenwood Ave. is the unofficial area flagship store for the Raleigh-based buffet chain. Sitting just about a mile from the company's corporate headquarters, it is a popular spot for company executives who are testing out new ideas or simply stopping by for lunch.

The restaurant closed on Wednesday. Demolition of the 17-year-old building will begin tomorrow.

Golden Corral remodels its restaurants every seven years, said Lance Trenary, senior vice president of company operations.

"We're redoing it because the building really had outlived its usefulness," he said. "We knew we had to either remodel it or redo it. ... So if we're going to invest money in it, we decided this was the best thing to do."

The 60 people who worked in the restaurant are temporarily working at other Golden Corral locations, Trenary said. When the Glenwood Avenue restaurant reopens in late August, those workers will come back and up to 50 more people will be hired. The new store will be about the same size but will be designed to handle more customers.

A former Raleigh mayor, a Raleigh restaurant entrepreneur and a Winston-Salem banker turned university professor will all be inducted in to the N.C. Business Hall of Fame next month in Charlotte.

Smedes York (at left), a developer who served as Raleigh mayor from 1979 to 1983, is being honored for his long career as a businessman, philanthropist and community booster.
York is chairman of three companies--McDonald York, York Properties and Prudential York Simpson Underwood--that today employ 600 people.

York will be joined by James Maynard, who along with his partner Bill Carl built Raleigh-based Golden Corral into a chain of 490 restaurants in 42 states that had annual revenue of $1.6 billion in 2008.

The third inductee is John Allison, who led BB&T Bank from $275 million in assets when he joined the firm in 1971 to more than $136 billion today. Allison is today a distinguished professor of practice at Wake Forest's business school.

Allison has also well known for being an enthusiastic advocate of the theories of the philosopher Ayn Rand.

The Hall of Fame's induction ceremony will take place Nov. 5 at The Weston in Charlotte.

A Texas-based franchisee that operates 42 Golden Corral restaurants in six states has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

According to the Dallas Morning News, four companies owned by Guillermo Perales filed for bankruptcy in Fort Worth last week. The company sought bankruptcy protection because of a 2008 lawsuit settlement of nearly $1 million that was awarded to a former employee at a Burger King restaurant also owned by Perales.

According to the Dallas Morning News story, "the woman would have been entitled to garnish restaurant funds to pay the judgment. So the company sought bankruptcy protection."

Bob McDevitt, Golden Corral's senior vice president of marketing and franchise operations, said Perales' 42 stores were in Texas, Indiana, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida. All stores remain open at this time, he said, though he was not able to offer details about what may happen to those stores in the future.

Raleigh-based Golden Corral operates almost 500 restaurants in 41 states with $1.5 billion in systemwide sales.

Readers offer well-timed letters of thanks to several Triangle entities, including Golden Corral. Tell us who deserves your thanks.