Tony York's On Main

The decor/color scheme was very elegant!  Service was good and Tony came out to see how we enjoyed our meal and was extremely personable with us.  Perhaps because he seems as knowledgeable about art as culinary skills, there was some amazing local art on the walls.  He was very interested in talking to my mother who also is an artist and invited her to showcase one of her pieces there.  The food was tasty & plentiful, especially the 6-layer cake that three of us shared for dessert.  We will definitely go back there!

Atmosphere was great - very elegant. Service was terrible. - we felt like an interruption. The food was decent, but nothing to write home about. We will definitely choose Whistlestop on next visit.

Tony is fighting the good fight, with the deck stacked against his restaurant, alcohol license-wise, since who wants to visit a cloth napkin-type restaurant for a fancy-schmancy meal, without being able to order a nice glass of wine, a cocktail, or beer?

The place has great service.  It's a lovely environment to enjoy a meal.

The food is accessible (not frou-frou or too complex, unless the train goes off of the rails - which happens), varied (from visit to visit), well-prepared and definitely out of the ordinary for what's available in this area.  Tony's is one of the few independently owned restaurants in Hardin County where diners looking for a good meal aren't limited to typical "homecookin'" (and terrible for your health) style Southern options.

That said, ingredients aren't always top-shelf - understandable, given the constraints & expectations, just noting that they're not the equivalent of hot spots in NuLu or downtown, as far as suppliers go.  I'm not sure what the solution is, since I really don't feel good about paying 50$ for a 35$ meal, at the same time that I understand how their menu is structured and that this place has got to have astronomical food costs.

For example, I hosted a small gathering last year in one of the beautifully decorated side rooms at the same time a local plant had scheduled a meal for 80 people.  My group was fine, but the group that had the remainder of the restaurant reserved no showed, without notice.  And, no doubt Tony ate a major portion of the food costs, the entire staffing costs, and turned away paying customers.  And from my conversation with the staff, that's not unusual, no matter how unfair and un-neighborly it is for a manufacturer with million dollar contracts to screw over a small local business.

I was at a recent charity event that TYOM donated to (Yay!  Good on them!).  Their products was...expensive, just judging from the ingredients.  It tasted terrible.  Not only was it just, flat out, a bad, unseasoned pairing of shrimp and sweet to tart fruits, it was a serious misjudgment of the local audience's willingness to try odd flavors.  The reason that I mention it is that the lack of judgment about what a local audience (even a comparatively sophisicated) local audience wants is hampered by simple palate inconsistency and preparation plays into problems folks have with the changing menu.

I've eaten at Le Bernadin.
I've eaten at the French Laundry.
WD 50. Catbird. VOLT. 610 Magnolia.Girl & the Goat..
Plus, basically, every 4+ restaurant in Boston and a few dozen in NYC and DC.

This is not that.

But it's a hell of a lot better than what else is around in KFC country, if one orders judiciously.