Godfather’s Pizza

Terrible customer service.
We walked into the restaurant hoping for lunch, discovered all of the high chairs where disgusting we asked one of the cooks for a rag to wipe one off ourselves. She ripped out her headphones to respond with «they shouldn’t be dirty» rolling her eyes & then proceeded to put her headphones back in. Needless to say we are driving to the Moorhead location for lunch today in hope to be treated like customers and not an annoyance from someone who hates their job.

Exceptionally dirty. I felt like I ate rocks. The staff especially the general manager was rather snobby and really no selection on the buffet. Where’s shakey’s when you need one. The one in Moorhead was way better and had a more friendly staff. Pity it closed.

Delicious food and kind staff. The buffet is reasonably priced and has more than just pizza, though their pizza is yummy too. Try the chicken strips and the mashed potatoes with the meatballs.

Ups and Downs.
The buffet previously was very bland. Food was mediocre warm, with little selection. The place was dead all three times we went.
Once placed a non-​buffet order which got screwed up. Toppings were added when not asked for. The management did compensate me for the mistake.
Today, went for the lunch buffet and it was honestly great. They’ve added a second buffet area, which has meatballs, chicken fingers, mashed potatoes. They also moved the potato wedges and breadsticks to this area, making room for more pizza on the other buffet area. The food was very good, each item was actually at least «good», with some bordering on great for chain food. The chicken fingers would be better served deep fried opposed to baked, as they arent very «crunchy», but they are all-​white meat as advertised. They threw a big calzone on the buffet, packed with ingredients. The place was packed with customers, so the improvements have been well noted.
The staff was a big turnaround too. Before, there were largely careless employees who were…“passable” in terms of friendliness. The staff today was a certain upgrade, bordering on «nice».
Pizza Ranch is still the «go-​to» Pizza Buffet in Fargo, but Godfather’s does give them some nice competition if today was no fluke.

Reviewing a chain is, in some ways, like challenging a kindergartner to a fistfight, in terms of fairness. No one is really going to be expecting really high end fare, for the most part, from any of the chain restaurants and almost certainly not from a pizza joint. This will be a rarity, but I’ve chosen Godfather’s both because I recently had it and because Godfather’s was formerly the top of the ladder, not only in chain pizza for that area, but in pizza at all in some of the smaller cities, like Detroit Lakes.
Not so much anymore. We got two items, a so-​called taco pizza and a standard thin crust pepperoni. Thin crust frequently carries approximately the same meaning as if you substituted the word «cracker» for thin crust and while that wasn’t the case here, it was close. Given how much they overcooked it, perhaps burnt cracker would be more to the truth. That it was sort at all was testimony to how greasy it was and the box the pizza came in was about equally as soft. Definitely a gigantic miss.
From there to the taco pizza, which featured what I’m assuming is their hand-​tossed crust. That crust was considerably thicker, perhaps as thick as the topping before they piled a stack of lettuce on it. It was certainly not a good crust and they gave us packets of Heinz Taco Sauce to go with it. The sauce on the pizza didn’t taste much different and the meat was formed into spongy little balls that reminded me of dry dog food chunks. I believe they use this same meat on their cheeseburger and a few other pizzas as well.
It’s always good to step out and do a few of these, to see how the restaurants hold up to your memories and here, it’s a definite case of how the mighty have fallen. That we called it in, arrived slightly after the time (they gave us a specific time rather than a window) and still had to wait another 10 minutes didn’t really do much to bolster their case, either. Compare this to Domino’s, where you can order online, choose your own time and bet your bottom dollar it will be ready. This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that you’re going to be eating Domino’s, but still, calling in and driving (in this case, about 15 miles) to go pick up food and not having it ready, such as this Godfather’s did, is inexcusable.