Valente's Restaurant — Restaurant in City of Watervliet

We used to live in Watervliet and this was one of our favorite restaurants. The food and service was always fantastic! WAS...

Last night we were in the area so we stopped in for our favorite, Veal Julian. We haven't had it in years and were really looking forward to it.

We were immediately seated but with no menus. We sat for at least 6 or 7 minutes before the person who seated us peeked around the corner and walked away. I made eye contact with him so I assumed he realized he forgot about us and would be right back with our menus. Another 2 or 3 minutes passed before another couple rounded the bend and sat in the booth across from us. Within a minute the person who seated us came to THEIR table with menus... I said "excuse me but can we have some menus?" and with that he took THEIR menus and placed them on our table and finally asked for our drink order, which was a seltzer with lemon & lime, a ginger ale, and a glass of water with lemon. The waiter came back with two more menus and when the other table said they didn't need to see a menu he turned to us and said "you can take these menus as well since they don't need them" and walked away! was he trying to be funny...?

The waiter finally returned with my seltzer (but only with a lime), and two glasses of water, all with melted ice and no lemon or ginger ale. I though perhaps he didn't have room on the tray and would be right back with the soda but it didn't come. I suggested at this point we leave but my husband wanted to stay because the meal would be worth it.

The waiter returned for our food order, which was an appetizer, and of course the veal Julian. He asked what kind of pasta and dressing for our salads. Okay, it is starting to look up, but still the soda hasn't come and no house bread, although butter sat on the table. And other tables had bread.. Honestly I thought my husband had forgotten about the soda so I didn't say anything but he finally asked the busboy for his ginger ale. The waiter brought it over without an apology.

Quite a bit of time passed and finally the appetizer came but we haven't gotten the salads yet, which is a little odd. Maybe the salad comes after the appetizer? Well when we were finished with the appetizer, out came the entrees. So I guess we're not getting salad either.

While I am not the type of person to never leave a tip, I was very much tempted. I assumed the wait staff splits tips so I reluctantly left one. However, the tip would have been much much more had we gotten, at the very least, average service. Below average is a compliment for what we got.

To the owner, we will never go out of our way to visit your establishment again. It was truly a shameful experience and if it wasn't for the meal being delishous I wouldn't even have given 1 star. Based on some other reviews my husband read last night you really should be ashamed that you haven't educated your staff on proper customer service.

You can forgive messing up a little but when there is no lemon, no ginger ale, no bread, no salad, and no apologies you're looking at a...

It is with a heavy heart that I write this review. I've been coming to Valente's for almost 40 years, and I always liked the food; I've even bought Valente's spaghetti sauce in the supermarket. Unfortunately, the restaurant never successfully transitioned to the takeout/delivery model necessitated by the pandemic. I ordered delivery three or four times over the past year; every time, we had a problem. The food was outrageously late, items were missing, etc. One time we ended up canceling the order altogether because our guests were leaving, and the order was still not here after numerous phone calls and assurances. This last time, though, broke the camel's back. I decided to bypass the delivery [non-]service and pick up the order myself. I called it in and drove over within the promised pickup window. It was well before the dinner rush, only a few tables were occupied, and only a few folks were at the bar. I announced myself and was told to wait. I waited for over 20 minutes, way past the promised time. The order finally arrived, three dinners plus an appetizer and an extra side. I paid for it and left. When I got home and unpacked the order, I found that it was missing ALL the side dishes and all the extras. No salads, no spaghetti, no extra side dish. Just three entrees and bread. I immediately called to report the situation. The person on the phone apologized and said they'd deliver it in 20 minutes or less. I said that'd be fine. After waiting for 25 minutes, I called again. It was as though nothing has ever transpired; I was asked if I wanted to come and get it. I said that it was way too late for that and that all I wanted by that point was a refund. The person on the phone said I would have to call back later and talk to "Sebastian." Apparently, there was nobody around to take action on this situation. I called later and talked to Sebastian, who offered no apology and made no attempt to "make things right" for ruining our dinner. He promised me that the credit for the missing items - and only the missing items, pro-rated to the cost of the dinners, would be processed "tomorrow." I am still waiting. This is not the behavior of a place that wants its customers. So I guess I will never order...

I very rarely leave a bad review. I am not going to be mean and nasty, but I do feel that perhaps there is something to learn about how to prepare certain dishes and that a restaurant can improve if they get some, let us say, constructive criticism. I've lived in this area all my life--62 years. Somehow I've avoided this place. Have only heard good things about it all my life. Today my wife and I celebrated our 35th anniversary and we decided we would finally give it a go. We ordered a salad, fried calamari, some bread, a "meat sauce fettuccini" and a pizza. The salad--with half of a cherry tomato and waaay more blue cheese dressing than lettuce deserves, was a C-. The bread was good: B+. The calamari was the highlight: It gets an A. After that it was all downhill. The meat sauce--which for some reason isn't labeled bolognese--was tasteless. The fettuccine was okay, and there was ground meat involved, but it was as if no one had heard of things called "spices." This is supposedly an Italian restaurant: How does it happen that an Italian restaurant makes something this bland? But the worst was the pizza. I've had plenty of C-minus pizza. Dime a dozen. I've never had a pizza I'd label a D. And up to now I never had a pizza I'd label an F. Wow, this was inedible. Something was bad. Unsure if it was the dough, the pizza sauce, or the burnt cheese. Or all of them. Not sure it could have been the pizza sauce because I couldn't find any (my wife did say she thought there was some in there; I just wasn't able to locate it). If you put pizza sauce on some dough and add some cheese you will have something quite edible. May not be great, but I bet eight out of ten would say, Yum. This pizza was simply inedible. It tasted awful. Why not put pizza sauce on a pizza? Are things that bad economically that they are skimping on sauce? Maybe this was a case of someone just having a bad day in...