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One Farmville restaurant will get a national spotlight next week. The media company America’s Best Restaurants (ABR) will be coming to town to focus on Pino’s Italian Restaurant, as part of its popular ABR Roadshow. 

On April 3, popular dishes will be highlighted, along with an extensive on-camera interview with owner Marilena Lentini about the restaurant’s special place in the Farmville community. Then the episode will be aired on multiple social media channels later on this year. If you’re wondering what the ABR Roadshow is, it’s pretty much what the title sounds like.

Hosts Theo Williams, Danyel Detomo, Luis Rivera and J Russell travel across the country, drawing attention to local, independently-owned restaurants. The show’s been running for more than 1,000 episodes at this point, running on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. This marks the second straight year ABR has shot an episode in Farmville, with the Brew House getting the spotlight in 2024. To put that in perspective, out of more than 1,800 episodes, only 28 restaurants in Virginia have been on the Roadshow and now two of those are in Farmville. 

Pino’s was nominated to be on an episode of the Roadshow by Jameca Lynch, who wrote in a submission that “the food is top notch, especially the strombolis and hoagies.” Restaurants are chosen for the roadshow through a combination of customer reviews, social media presence, menu items, involvement with the community and customer nominations. 

Background on Pino’s Italian Restaurant 

Pino’s has been open since 1979, operated originally by Peter and Bella Buzzetta. When current owner Marilena Lentini’s father Salvatore emigrated to the United States from Italy, his first restaurant job was at Pino’s, helping the Buzzetta family. Although the Lentini family later moved to New Hampshire and opened restaurants there, they returned to Farmville, and to Pino’s, after 11 years in the northeast. Marilena, who worked at the restaurant as a teenager, has been sole owner since 2016.

Marilena said she learned the ropes of cooking from her parents in a restaurant kitchen at an early age.

“We have pictures from when I was just a little girl already making large pizzas,” she said. “I was maybe 7 or 8 years old.”

She describes herself as “always full of energy, always ready to go every single day.” Marilena says she has a drive to improve things, from remodeling to new menu items.

“Customers are very pleased; my staff as well,” she says. “They support me. They love what I’m doing every single day.”

As for the menu, if you haven’t been over there, it offers a wide variety of appetizers, salads, hot and cold subs, wraps, burgers and sandwiches, calzones and stromboli, pasta dishes, specialty and seafood dinners, and of course from-scratch New York-style pizza, available to customize or order specialty toppings such as Chicken Pesto, Philly Cheesesteak and ‘Rustico’, topped with eggplant, spinach, ricotta, and Sicilian diced tomatoes.

When will filming take place? 

The ABR Roadshow will be on location at Pino’s next week. That’ll be Thursday, April 3 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. The restaurant’s finished episode premiere date will be announced on their Facebook page and will be featured on America’s Best Restaurants’ website. Pino’s Italian Restaurant is located at 404 S. Main Street in Farmville.