Is Golden Corral in Egg Harbor Township, NJ permanently closed?

It looks like a once popular – and rather foodie – restaurant in southern New Jersey has closed for good.

We’re talking about the Golden Corral Buffet on the Black Horse Pike in Egg Harbor Township, located in the Harbor Square Mall (still known locally as the old Shore Mall).

Over the past day, all Golden Corral signs have been removed from the building, replaced with signs announcing that the building is for rent.

According to the restaurant’s Facebook page, the restaurant closed when New Jersey’s COVID-19 pandemic restrictions began in March 2020.

As things with the virus got better and restaurants started to reopen, this Golden Corral location remained closed.

The last post on their Facebook page was from last September when franchise owner Niral Patel said the restaurant would reopen soon and was looking to hire people for at least 50 positions.

It never happened.

This social media post included a mention of a “baseless lawsuit” between Patel and a bank, “which launched baseless attacks on our business”, and a link to an article published by the Albany, NY Business Review.

This article stated,

Niral Patel is fighting to rebuild his businesses and clear his name a year after the Adirondack Trust accused him of fraud and froze $1.98 million the restaurant and hotel owner received as part of the federal paycheck protection program.

In addition to the Golden Corral in Egg Harbor Township, Patel and his family owned a hotel near Saratoga Springs, NY, as well as several Golden Corral restaurants in New York and New Jersey.

Adirondack Trust sued Patel and his mother, Nirmala Patel, and their companies in Saratoga County in October. The state Supreme Court case claims the Patels used Paycheck Protection Program money to pay for residential mortgages and other personal expenses instead of covering payroll, commercial leases and other federally authorized business expenses.

Patel has strongly denied these allegations in this article and others.

“There’s just no evidence of any of this because it didn’t happen,” Patel said.

A play written in Albany, NY Union Times in october last year refers to a counter-suit Patel filed against the Adirondack Trust, however, we were unable to find any recent definitive information on the status of either lawsuit.

Either way, it’s easy enough to assume that the removed signs at Golden Corral in Egg Harbor Township mean the buffet isn’t reopening.

Officially, the Golden Corral website lists the location of Egg Harbor Township as “temporarily suspended operations”.

Before the pandemic, it was quite common to see the parking lot surrounding the restaurant filled with busloads of people enjoying a meal there.

We have messaged the restaurant owners via Facebook for comment with Golden Corral HQ and will update this story if either group provides additional information.

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