By ROSEMARY DELLINGER

Zillah’s Valley Buffet restaurant is making a few changes. The restaurant on First Avenue is changing it name and adjusting menu items and hours to accommodate customer demands. 

According to owner Toni Vrettas, the change to Valley Buffet and Grill fits with the additions to the restaurant’s menu. 

“We are still offering the buffet, but are also adding several regular menus items including an expanded burger menu, additional sandwiches and a specialty dessert menu,” she said. 

Restaurant hours have also changed. Monday through Friday lunches are from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dinners hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m. 

Weeknight dinners from the cook-to-order menu will include a variety of nightly specials and the Saturday night dinner menu will also feature the restaurant’s now famous weekend steak and shrimp meal, which Vrettas said has been very popular with customers. 

On Saturday and Sunday mornings, customers can enjoy both the breakfast buffet or choose from the cook to order menu from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

The expanded lunch menu includes several customer requested sandwiches. Along with BLTs and the standard roast beef, turkey or ham deli sandwiches are a grilled tuna melt and a hearty patty melt. The café’s popular “Build Your Own Burger” lists the Grill’s two popular Super Mushroom Burger and their Breakfast Burger with eggs on Texas toast. It also includes restaurant cook’s Steve Aliff’s “Bad Boy Burger” –a hearty feast with two meat patties, bacon, ham grilled onions, BBQ sauce, two slices of cheese, lettuce and tomato.
“I haven’t seen too many people able to eat the entire thing yet,” she said. 

Vrettas is also putting her own personal signature touch on the dessert menu. She is making the café’s homemade cheesecakes. Customers looking for desserts can also order homemade fruit and cream pies along with ice cream. 

Valley Buffet opened in early December at 507 S. First St. in downtown Zillah. The restaurant expanded in late spring after taking over additional space in the building when a beauty salon next door moved to Yakima. 

Vrettas said the extra space has created room for banquet meetings and larger lunch groups. The restaurant also has open-air seating under large umbrellas on the café’s front patio. 

“It has been an exciting first six months,” Vrettas said. “We are continuing to adjust to meet our customers requests and needs.”