Olympia's longstanding local joint is no more.
Tony Roma, a fixture in Olympia cuisine since 1962, has abandoned his operation for a life of margaritas and mai tais on a cruise ship somewhere in the Caribbean. Roma established his eponymous restaurant when barbecue was a backwater boondoggle, and through award-winning slow cooking and secret sauces steadily built up a reputation for excellence in all things pork, beef, and sometimes chicken.
What led to the decline of that one-of-a-kind blend of Italian flair and country vittles? I blame Best Buy and Claire's Boutique for slowly corrupting the mall, over the past two decades replacing homegrown stores and eateries with an accretion of soulless corporate crap. I blame Olympians for forgetting their roots. And, mostly, I blame myself.
So long, Tony Roma's. We'll sure miss your rib-sticking ribs.
1 comment:
On what was an unserious post, a reader posted a serious comment, which I deleted because it contained a private phone number. Below is the comment, with the phone number edited out:
hi. my name is Atom. i wanted to educate you on what really happened to Tony Romas. i have been serving there for 3 years and loved my job. last wednesday, when i showed up for work, the doors were locked. i had no idea why. later that night all of the employees got together to figure things out. we now know that Randy Schuler, the manager of Olympia, Tacoma & Southsound Tony Romas, decided to pull the plug on Wednesday morning because he was "losing too much money". not only did he not give the employees notice, the managers only found out late Tuesday night. he left over 130 people jobless in one day - and we STILL haven't got offical notice from anyone. many of the servers at my resturant are single, working mothers who have no idea what they will do if they don't find a job soon.... in case you're interested in [Randy Schuler's] side of the story. you might want to ask if he plans on paying the 130+ employees he laid off for the last 2 weeks of work they did...
atomseyes@yahoo.com
I ask that all my readers respect others' privacy, unless they have either expressly or tacitly consented to have private information made public.
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