Ben Steel (.
Google
When one visits a corporate chain restaurant, usually one can count on a certain "floor" of mediocrity. They survive, even thrive, behind a shield of being vaguely satisfying to enough guests to keep the lights on. Guests will quickly forget their dining experience there, thus preventing them from ever forming solidly negative opinions that would prevent a return trip. While always mediocre, you can count on a safe, if uninspiring dinner with aggressively focus grouped middle-of-the-road quality.
Bravo! (exclamation theirs) completely smashed through the floor of mediocrity straight into the pits of abject failure! (exclamation mine) I'm pretty sure this is the "Italian" food they serve in Hell to people who enjoy actual Italian cuisine. Driving up to Bravo! from Cincinnati, we passed the infamous "hell is real" sign. A sentiment I, an atheist, confidently dismissed...before my subsequent trip to Bravo! for dinner. Now I'm not so sure.
The free bread was an overworked glutinous mess of truly awful caliber. Say what you will about their food, at least Olive Garden has good breadsticks.
I asked about the draft beer selection and was told they don't have draft beer. I guess having *literally anything* made fresh onsite is just against their ethos?
So I ordered what should have been the safest item on the menu - a pepperoni pizza. Do you know how badly you have to screw up for me to dislike a pizza? I gave them the easiest softball order and they swung, missed, and hit themselves in the face with their own bat. The crust, much like the free beard, was also a doughy, overworked mess, topped with the most flavorless sauce I think I've ever eaten. I'm not sure it even contained tomatoes, or even came from a tomato. The banana peppers were brown(!) and cut into safe, tiny chunks so that a Karen who's feeling experimental never actually encounters a significant amount of flavor. The Little Caesars Pizza that my son had that night (he was back home while we attended a show) was ten times better than this, and while I fully admit that Little Caesars is not the highest caliber of pizza, at least it manages to meet the basic criteria of tasting like actual pizza. (Actually that's not fair. LC's is shockingly decent for the price. Bravo! could learn much from them)
This was the worst dining experience I've had in a long time. A truly memorable trip that I wish I could forget. Bravo.