Valentino’s

I was almost convinced to give a pass from the bad reviews. Not as bad as I feared.
The pizza: I did not like the crust, no chew to it. Soft.
Other than that, standard buffet fare. Nothing spectacular but will fill your gut.

We showed up with 18 people after govong them 30 minutes advanced notice, they had a room set for us and were very attentive. The food was what you expect from an Italian buffet, nothing to write home about but it tastes pretty decent.

My family and I have gone to Valentino’s twice in the last month. We should not have returned after the first time, but we thought we might have gone on a bad day so we would give it another chance. We were there the first time around 5:30 pm and the second time at about 12:30. The pizza was either soggy, or tough from sitting out way too long. As a matter of fact, nearly everything seemed like it had been sitting out for a day or so. My daughter told me that her smiley fries tasted old and she gets better ones in her school lunch, which is not saying much. We will not be returning.

The food was terrible, 5 out of our party of 7 became sick as a result of this substandard buffet. The lettuce on the salad bar was brown and wilted terribly, none of the cold salads or food was remotely cold, and the hot foods tasted like they were from yesterday’s offering.
I can’t imagine the Kearney health inspectors allowing this place to run in this condition much longer.

Pretty sub-​standard buffett. I love Valentino’s pizza but it seems like outside of Lincoln, they just can’t do it right.

I remember the original Valentino’s in Lincoln. This franchisee could learn a lot from the original. Pizza Hut would be a better choice and I don’t like Pizza Hut. Salad bar was DIRTY, stuff slopped from one container to another. Staff was friendly but if you are looking for Authentic Pizza you’ll enjoy stopping at a C Store and getting a cardboard one before you spend the money here.

Two types of indigenous food that Cornhuskers go absolutely apeshit over are Runzas and Valentino’s pizza. Kansas Citians have their BBQ, Iowans have loose-​meat sandwiches. Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and South Dakota have nothing remarkable, so I suppose it does count for something.
I was stuck by the Hilltop Mall in Kearney and was starving. I’d had hamburguesas for lunch in GI so I didn’t want to go back to Culver’s, the Sax Pizza in the mall looked lame, but I thought I would give Val’s Grande Buffet another try as pizza seemed the thing to do.
Pretty friendly all-​girl staff who come pick up yer dirty plates, and they were attentive when I asked for fresh coffee to be put in the crazy air-​pump things (although really, ya coulda told me there was another beverage station, No?). In anycase, that’s a side issue. The pizza is as good as you remember IF you get it hot outta their pizza kitchen. And stick to the basics (hamburg, pepperoni). Nothing worse than a cheeseburger-​green pepper pizza sitting out under a gawdamn heat lamp for an hour. Some lasagna and italian sausages were ok, the salad bar not bad. Since it is a buffet it has all sorts of weirdass options like tacos and mashed potatoes and chicken nuggets for all those geniuses who go to a pizza joint and don’t want pizza.
Dessert included a sort of wacky apple-​pie pizza which was pretty good, but the «ice cream» was just lazy-​assed cheap ice milk and sucked.