Most companies develop strategic plans measured in years. Golden Corral measures success in generations.
During a conversation at The Private Company Governance Summit 2026 with Wolfe Tone, vice chair and U.S. Deloitte Private leader, Easter Maynard, second-generation owner and chair of Golden Corral, and Lance Trenary, the company’s president and CEO, reflected on the governance philosophy that has guided one of America’s best-known restaurant brands for decades. Their discussion wasn’t about quarterly earnings or market cycles. Instead, it focused on something increasingly rare in business: building a company designed to thrive for the next 100 years.
For Maynard, that philosophy reaches back to the company’s founding. “When my father started the company, his goal was to create a business that would provide meaningful employment where people could feel proud to go to work every day and know they were building wealth for their own families. He wanted people to be productive members of their communities while creating financial stability for his own family as well.”
Growth was never the sole objective. “He never imagined the company would become what it is today, but people were always the priority. If profits followed, even better,” says Maynard.
That commitment has remained remarkably consistent through decades of change. According to Maynard, “We’ve worked very hard to maintain that vision,”
Trenary says that same philosophy drew him to Golden Corral more than four decades ago. “What attracted me to Golden Corral more than 40 years ago was that it wasn’t simply a great restaurant company. It was a company with a purpose.”
Profitability matters, he says, but only as part of a much broader mission. “We’ve never been apologetic about wanting to be profitable, but it has always been more important to take care of our people and use those profits to do good in the communities we serve.”
That perspective shapes how the company approaches governance. “The 100-year plan is really a forever mindset,” says Trenary. “We’re not making decisions based on quarterly earnings or this year’s bonus program. We’re making decisions that will be good for the next generation of Golden Corral, whether that’s our franchisees, our employees or future leaders of the company.”
Maintaining that long-term perspective has also required the company to evolve. Maynard credits her father with creating a culture that embraced change without abandoning its core values. “My father has always been an early adopter. He was open to new ideas from the very beginning, and that became part of our culture.”
That willingness to reinvent the business proved critical when Golden Corral fundamentally changed its operating model. “Years ago, we realized our original restaurant model had become obsolete,” says Maynard. “Moving to the buffet concept was a huge and frightening change, but the company was willing to be nimble, creative and open-minded. That willingness to evolve became part of who we are.”
At the same time, some things never changed. “My father never stopped reinforcing the company’s values. Whenever he spoke to employees, he thanked them for their commitment and reminded them how much he believed in them. The values always came first,” says Maynard.
Although her father no longer attends board meetings, Maynard says his influence continues to shape the organization. “He’s still very much a driving influence on our vision and values.”
Trenary believes one aspect of that transformation often goes unnoticed. “One thing that’s remarkable is that we reinvented the company with the same people.”
Many organizations respond to major disruption by replacing leadership teams. Golden Corral chose another path. “We went through an enormous amount of change with the same leadership team, and that meant a great deal to our people,” says Trenary.
Employees understood that while the company itself was changing, its commitment to them remained constant. According to Trenary, “They knew the company was changing dramatically, but they also knew the people leading them hadn’t abandoned them.”
That culture would face its greatest test during the COVID-19 pandemic. Few industries were hit harder than restaurants, and buffet concepts were among the most severely affected.
“COVID was extraordinarily difficult for the restaurant industry, and particularly for buffets,” Trenary said. “Our business model essentially stopped overnight.”
The board’s first instinct wasn’t to protect quarterly earnings. Trenary says, “Our board looked at the situation and said, ‘We’ve entered this with a strong balance sheet. Let’s figure out what we have to do to ensure our franchisees survive.'”
That commitment required extraordinary sacrifices. “We stopped collecting royalties for nearly a year because our franchisees had no cash flow. That forced us to rely on our balance sheet while working through enormous lease obligations, procurement contracts and media commitments.”
Outside advisers urged the company to pursue bankruptcy or restructuring. Instead, Golden Corral relied on relationships it had spent decades building.
According to Trenary, “We had open conversations with our board, our lenders, our landlords and our suppliers. We explained exactly what we were facing, what we needed and what we intended to do when we came out the other side.”
“Almost everyone stayed with us.”
One supplier extended approximately one million dollars’ worth of product to help restaurants reopen. Banks, landlords and vendors all continued working with the company. “When the crisis ended,” says Trenary, “every obligation was paid. Every bank was made whole. Every vendor was paid. Every commitment we made was honored.”
He credits that outcome to principles established decades earlier. “Easter’s father always told me three things: Maintain a strong balance sheet, live your values and always do the right thing.”
The payoff extended well beyond surviving the pandemic. “When we came out of the pandemic, we posted three consecutive record years,” says Trenary.
The lessons of the pandemic reinforced something both Maynard and Trenary believe had been developing for years: Governance works best when it is built on trust. For Maynard, that trust is rooted in a relationship that long predates either of their current roles. “Lance and I have essentially grown up together professionally. I started attending board meetings as a young observer, and I watched him develop through the organization. By the time I became board chair and he became CEO, we’d spent years building confidence in each other.”
That foundation has made honest conversations possible, even when initiatives have fallen short of expectations. “Neither of us hesitates to tell the truth,” says Maynard. “One example involved a new restaurant concept we launched. It didn’t work. Because the board had supported the effort from the beginning, Lance felt completely comfortable returning to us and explaining why it had failed.”
There was no finger-pointing, she recalls. “There was never a ‘gotcha’ moment. We had agreed together to pursue an innovative but risky opportunity. It didn’t succeed, but we learned from it and moved on.”
For boards that expect management to innovate, Maynard believes that distinction is critical. “There has to be permission to fail if you expect people to innovate.”
Trenary agrees. “We felt completely comfortable coming back to the board because we also came with a plan for mitigating the losses,” he says. “Innovation requires taking thoughtful risks. Every proposal needs a sound business case, but if something doesn’t work, the conversation should become, ‘What did we learn?’ not ‘Who’s at fault?'”
That atmosphere of openness has fundamentally shaped how management and the board work together. “I’ve never questioned whether the board has another agenda,” says Trenary. “Everything is transparent. When you have that level of trust, decisions happen much faster because nobody is second-guessing motives.”
Maintaining that trust also requires clarity about where governance ends and management begins. Maynard acknowledges that some directors naturally possess deep operational expertise. “I never operated a Golden Corral restaurant, so I don’t feel tempted to manage operations,” she says. “Some directors have extensive restaurant experience, and naturally they have ideas.”
But the board’s role is to provide perspective—not direction. “Lance does a very good job of saying, ‘Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll take it from here.'” As a result, the board intentionally keeps its conversations focused on strategic issues. “Our board tries to keep discussions at the strategic level,” says Maynard. “At the same time, members of the leadership team regularly call directors with particular expertise for advice. That allows directors to contribute meaningfully without taking over management’s responsibilities.”
Trenary sees that interaction as one of the advantages of having an engaged board. “I encourage that interaction. Our directors attend conventions, sit with franchisees instead of at reserved tables and have conversations throughout the organization.”
The objective isn’t for directors to manage the company. It’s to test management’s assumptions. Trenary says, “I want them testing what they’re hearing from management against what people are actually experiencing. That outside perspective makes us better.”
As Golden Corral looks toward its next century, both leaders believe the board’s greatest responsibility is preparing the people who will eventually inherit it. For Trenary, that begins with preserving the company’s culture while recognizing that the business itself will continue to evolve.
“It starts with people,” he says. “We have to be intentional about developing talent and preserving our culture while continuing to evolve.”
The company of the future, he acknowledges, may look very different from today’s Golden Corral. “Golden Corral probably won’t look exactly the same 20 years from now, but the way we make decisions should remain the same.”
That distinction matters.
“We want different perspectives around the table, but we want everyone making decisions from the same foundation,” says Trenary. “Our culture can’t simply be words on a wall. It has to be the lifeblood of the company.”
For Maynard, that long-term thinking places succession planning squarely on the board’s agenda.
“From the board’s perspective, succession planning never stops,” she says. “We’re constantly challenging Lance and the leadership team to build the next generation of leaders.”
Building that pipeline requires discipline. “You have to maintain a strong bench without creating unnecessary overhead, and that’s a balance,” says Maynard.
But for a company committed to thinking in generations rather than quarters, the responsibility is unavoidable, says Maynard.
“If we’re serious about the next 100 years, we have to be thinking today about who will be leading the company 10 or 15 years from now. That’s one of the board’s most important responsibilities.”