Darden Opens New Restaurant

Orlando Sentinel:

Darden Restaurant has quietly opened a new bar-and-grill restaurant in Ohio, designed to be a potential alternative to its struggling Smokey Bones barbecue chain.

The new restaurant, called Rocky River Grillhouse, is located in Cuyahoga Falls, south of Cleveland. Darden confirmed that the restaurant was a possible new iteration of the Smokey Bones concept but declined to offer additional details.

For months, executives at Darden have been hinting that a major overhaul of Smokey Bones was in the works, including a possible name change. Once a promising concept for the Orlando-based company, Smokey Bones stumbled as it expanded outside of the barbecue friendly confines of the Southeastern U.S. Read more.