Fort Oglethorpe's Golden Corral will be rebuilt this year.
"They are excited to rebuild and we are excited they will be rebuilding," said Fort Oglethorpe Mayor Earl Gray. "It was one of the top Golden Corrals in the nation. As far as I know it's the only all-you-can-eat buffet in the city, so it draws from a pretty wide area."
Golden Corral's Vice President of Construction Gary Custer is in the process of obtaining the permits necessary for construction.
"We hope to have the drawings done in the next month or so," said Custer. "We will start [construction] right after the permit is approved in May or June."
What remains of the former Golden Corral building, which burned down in early January, has been leveled to make way for the new building, he said.
Owner Don Adkison said the new store should open in August. He added that the new building will be larger, seating an additional 125 people, and three leased lots will be combined to hold 180 parking spaces for the new restaurant.
"The new building will be the latest prototype that Golden Corral has," said Custer. "It will be over 11,000 square feet. I'm hiring the architect and engineers to do the drawings. I'm managing the design of the project to build it for the owner Don Adkison. It's about four and a half months between the permit issue date and when we turn the store over for operations to train and open."
There won't just be more space, according to Adkison, there will be 35 percent more food offerings.
"We will put in a smoker to do smoked meats. That's a first for us," he said. "We will have a chocolate fountain and cotton candy and a new feature: hand-dipped ice cream, too. The building will have more of a warehouse look to it."
He said a banner will be posted to show what the new restaurant will look like.
"Some of our staff are on loan to the Gunbarrel location and they will come back," said Adkison. "We will probably hire about 100 people for the new store. Golden Corral Fort Oglethorpe won the Franchise of the Year in 2008. We were ranked No. 14 out of all Golden Corral stores when it burned down."
GC Development will build the new store. The architect for the project is National Restaurant Designers out of Raleigh, N.C.
"I think customers will really like the new Fort Oglethorpe store," Custer said. "The bars [will] have so many more offerings than the old store."