Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Yesterday sometime after 11 a.m. Monday I received phone calls from several friends in Salisbury telling me Ryan’s, the budget friendly “all you can eat” buffet on 730 Jake Alexander Boulevard South and now the former meeting place for the Rowan Republican Breakfast Club, failed to open. A sign inside Ryan’s front door window read: “To our valued guests, this location is now closed. Thank you for your business and we hope to serve you at an other location very soon.” Probably not–the parent company Ovations Brands out of Hollywood, Texas has been closing its buffet restaurants all over the United States since March: Ryan’s, Hometown Buffet, Fire Mountain, and Old Country Buffet. Allegedly the buffet chain, with a bucket full of names, is still reeling from an $11 million dollar judgement in federal court for a man who got salmonella food poisoning from an Old Country Buffet in Cheyenne, Wyoming back in 2010. Restaurant food preparers take heed.
We learned that a number of Ryan’s staff showed up yesterday and told disappointed customers that Ryan’s blindsided its employees and customers by failing to inform them ahead of time of the closure. Sometimes corporations behave badly with their employees–a fact of life. (Municipalities sometimes do the same). What we dislike seeing is when companies fail to pay out their last paychecks or don’t fork over owed vacation pay. We hope that doesn’t occur.
I enjoyed Ryan’s buffet. You could find plenty of healthy veggies and fruits and other tasty low cost fare. I have many good memories of the Rowan Republican Men’s Breakfast (now the Rowan Republican Breakfast Club) that met in Ryan’s the first Saturday morning of each month. I did a stint as its president. The restaurant employees were ever helpful and quick to provide service.
Sorry to learn Ryan’s closed.
