When Tony Roma’s, the restaurant associated with ribs and steaks, rebranded its location near Orlando International Airport in December, it appeared as though the company was trying revitalize a concept that had become tired and stale. And it seemed like a good idea.
Tony Roma’s: Fire Grill & Lounge — or TR as the logo would have you refer to it — was the result. It wanted to de-emphasize the ribs and focus more on “American food” and hand-crafted cocktails and craft beers. But when I attended a reopening event for the new brand, I found it something of a hot mess. Even though you would expect such an event to feature the restaurant’s best efforts, I found most of what I sampled that evening pretty dull, and some of what was offered was downright odd, such as a dish that was a sort of dip billed as a deconstructed pizza. Why? I’ve never been a fan of deconstructed foods — we go to restaurants to pay someone to put the ingredients together for us — but of all foods a pizza wants to be constructed. Service, too, was surprisingly unpolished and unprofessional.
