Cunninghams Journal — Restaurant in Kearney

We are from out of town but we travel to Kearney once a year. We’ve eaten at Cunningham’s in the past and we’ve had good experiences, but this year was horrible. We arrived and seated ourselves, as the sign in the front direct us to do so, and we saw multiple staff members notice that we had come in and that we were sitting there, but no one acknowledged us or came over to take our drink order. After about twenty minutes, a staff person approached the people at an adjacent table to check on them, but then hurried away. We asked the people behind us what they had done to be waited on, and they yelled for the manager, who evidently they knew by name. He approached the table and apologized, but instead of taking our drink orders and getting things started, he gave us the “I will send someone over line.” We could see several staff people multiple times that night standing around together in the middle of the room. When someone finally did come over she wasn’t very friendly. I ordered a gourmet burger that had multiple toppings and was supposed to be smothered. It was $17 before tax, but based on the menu description and the toppings it was supposed to have, I figured that the price was justifiable. It was way overcooked to the point of tasting burnt, and dry. They had asked us about cook temperature and I had requested medium well. It was also supposed to be smothered with bbq sauce, and it had none. I elected to pay a 15 percent tip when we left because I thought my experience was poor. Our waitress slammed down my leftover container and walked off like she was angry. Very disappointing,...

First off, if you hear a local talking about this place they will probably call it Cunningham on the bricks 🧱. Which could slow you down as you try to look it up. The Bricks refers to an historic part of dow where the streets are paved with bricks. The entrance here is up a flight of stairs at the front of the building. But there is a long ramp along the side of the building to a back door if you are mobility impaired. There are both high tables and standard height tables here. The staff were happy to put a couple of the low tables together to accommodate a larger group, we just let them know we had mobility impaired folks in the group. They try to save the short tables for folks who need them. During lunch it is a seat yourself sort of operation.

Everyone was pleased with everything they ordered. The kitchen was reasonably swift. I really like they way they do nachos. The nachos were served with a base of like fried pita chips. A nice innovation in the nachos space. I was also pleased with pizza 🍕 I ordered.

We were really pleased with our server. And while I suspect our server was especially good it also looked like other tables were getting good service too.

Bathroom was bright and...

It’s disheartening how we were treated. I’ve always had a great experience with Cunningham’s and enjoyed the food. I wanted a good burger and wanted to share this with my family. When you get in there’s a please seat yourself sign. We have a handicapped child who struggles with high top chairs so we were looking for a table. One of the gals was kind and said we could pull some tables together. We had a party of 8. We pulled three 4-top tables together to fit us all. Management approached us and told us we couldn’t do that and needed to cram 8 of us into two 4-tops.

The way he talked to us was enough for me to not want them to have my business. Tabs are normally around $200 when I take my family out and I tip generously having worked the service industry. I’ve got kids and I get it, they are messy. I always tip more because I truly appreciate the service wait staff provides.

If your tables are reserved, please mark them instead of telling us we can’t use them and have to cram 8 people into what is realistically now a six top. There’s no need to act like we are a major inconvenience. Especially when your restaurant is dead. There’s plenty of other good options, and likely...