The team behind NYC Korean restaurants C as in Charlie and Korean diner Kisa is rolling out its newest spot complete with fried chicken, Salisbury steak, carpeting, and as many trips through the buffet line as you can handle. Good Time Country Buffet opens at 166 First Avenue near East 10th Street in the East Village on Saturday, September 12.
For David Yun, Steve Choi, and Yong Min Kim, it’s less a retro stunt than another excavation of their own history: the country buffets the team grew up visiting once their families moved from Korea to Georgia. Once common across the South — as chain and mom-and-pop versions — the all-you-can-eat format has been disappearing for years, a decline accelerated by the pandemic.
Here are a few things worth knowing before Good Time Country Buffet opens.
Scott Semler
Country buffets are disappearing
The format had already been losing ground as dining habits changed; COVID dealt another blow to restaurants built around communal trays and unlimited trips for seconds. That disappearance helped convince the Good Time Country Buffet partners that the idea made sense. “We thought maybe around now, when things are very expensive, what if we bring this affordable country buffet back to the city?” Yun tells Eater.
There’s a Korean American history behind it
Many of the smaller Atlanta-area country buffets Yun and Choi grew up around were owned by Korean immigrants, Grub Street reported. Yun tells Eater that his father supplied produce to mom-and-pop country buffets. “I hopped on his truck to deliver boxes of cabbages to those country buffets,” he says. Later, while he was in high school, he worked the register at Donnie’s Country Cookin’, a buffet owned by a friend’s father.
One dish can be the measure of a good country buffet
Collard greens: “In my definition, it determines whether it’s a good buffet or not,” Yun says.
It’s an interesting assertion considering that many (non-Southerners) would consider collards less of a star than fried chicken, cornbread, mac and cheese, Salisbury steak, or grits. Rotating dishes will include rib tips, Sloppy Joes, chicken wings, fried catfish, and chicken gizzards. There’s also a make-your-own salad bar.
What you won’t find at Good Time are Korean riffs on Southern food. “It’s not part of the plan,” Yun says.
Carpeting is essential to the buffet vibe
Good Time is committing to the aesthetics of the buffets the partners remember from their youth: wood paneling, multiple patterned wallpapers, drop ceilings, and — crucially — carpet. Carpeting was a practical feature of country buffets catering to older diners, helping make the floors less slippery.
Around $27 gets you as many plates as you want
Good Time is keeping another buffet tradition, too: discounts for older diners. Dinner is $26.99 for adults, $23.99 for people 65 years and older, and $13.99 for kids from four to nine years-old. You get a plate, serve yourself, and go back when you’re ready for more.
Boozy peach frozen drinks and desserts, including ice cream sundaes, will be available separately. Good Time Country Buffet will be open Wednesday through Sunday from 5 to 10 p.m., with walk-ins and a limited number of reservations available through Resy.
Dining and Cooking