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Roy’s Restaurant is permanently closed

Written By Scott Joseph On September 11, 2020

Roy’s Restaurant, the Hawaiianesque fine dining venue on Sand Lake Road, has closed permanently.

The restaurant closed in March when all on-premises dining was forbidden and did not offer takeout and delivery as many others did. It had recently reopened for in-house dining and people were reported being seen there as recently as Monday.

Efforts to reach the corporate offices were not immediately successful. A manager at a neighboring restaurant said that he was unaware that the restaurant had permanently closed but had heard that it was struggling.

Roy’s was started in 1988 in Hawaii by James Beard Award-winning chef Roy Yamaguchi. The Orlando Roy’s opened in 2006 with Greg Richie, who trained with Yamaguchi in Hawaii, as the chef/partner. Richie is now the chef/partner of Soco in downtown’s Thornton Park.

Roy’s, in its heydays, was one of venues that elevated Restaurant Row to a dining destination for locals as well as for tourists and conventioneers. It had undergone some ownership changes that some say contributed to a decline in the quality of the experience. 

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An earlier version of this article stated that Roy’s had not reopened following its initial closing in March. It reopened when restaurants were allowed to do so with limited seating.

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