Rome’s Awaited Grand Opening Is This Friday!

By Vanessa Lantos Daly (Spicy Melon)

Yes, you read that right—Friday the 7th at 6 p.m. is the perfect time to join this party, which has been a year in the making.

Yep… a whole year, plus a few extra days sprinkled in.

Around this time last year, posts about the upcoming Rome’s bar started splashing across Instagram. If you didn’t see it there, you might have caught an excited Jerome Steele talking about his new bar at his usual hangout spots.

What can I say? Sometimes an Instagram cleanse is necessary.

The news of Rome’s opening was met with excitement—Jerome has built a loyal following from years of bartending locally.

I’ve known him since 2019, back when he was bartending at Lone Wolf Lounge, his magnetic personality always drawing people in. With a welcoming smile and a friendly greeting, his warmth was contagious, making him the main reason many visited that bar.

The name of the bar needs no explanation. Rome’s is short for Jerome, and just as his name is proudly displayed on the sign, his reputation speaks for itself. Since last February, he has poured himself into this venture.

From the beginning, Jerome has expressed how fortunate he is to have a good friend as a business partner. I met him and Josh Sembrano at their soon-to-be fully inaugurated bar this past Friday on a sunny afternoon.

We got our liquor license yesterday,” Jerome tells me with a tired smile and sparkling eyes.

After a year of signing the lease, endless renovations, and countless headaches, they are finally wrapping up their city permits—just in time.

Being a small business owner in food and beverage in this city is not for the faint of heart. I see it time and again with each story I write.

I know these gents are busy, and I don’t want to take too much of their time, so I ask Jerome if he can share his dream in five minutes. He glances at Josh.

“I guess it all started about five years ago. Josh and I met and became really good friends, and he really wanted to see me succeed. He really has been the backbone in all of this.”

Rome’s is taking over the former location of Bird’s BBQ & Seafood at 2310 Montgomery Street.

“We found this place, we jumped on it, and got a seven-year lease on it. And then it was just A LOT of work in between—the build-out, the construction, and all the headaches of dealing with city people.”

Jerome also shares candidly: “Josh has other businesses and ventures. He got me in a position where I can handle everything on-site, and he can be a remote partner and just attend official stuff.”

When I ask Jerome about the cuisine, he lights up.

“I want to say it’s Northern American-Italian cuisine. We carry homemade pierogis, which nobody does in this city. Also specialties like baked stuffed clams, chicken Parmesan, meatball Parmesan, and other Italian sandwiches. Now that we have our liquor license, we’re going to add more finger foods to the menu.”

And speaking of liquor… to a fellow bartender, no less, I had to hear his vision for the drink offerings.

“There will be cocktails, draft beers, and also brunch offerings on the weekends from noon until 3 p.m. I want to keep it real simple. A couple of seltzers, a couple of IPAs, the cheap beer that everybody loves. Some cocktails and mimosas by the bottle on the weekend.”

For now, food service is on pause until the big day.

“We were open for food, but we closed for ten days to do some renovations and get ready for the grand opening.”

Jerome is grateful for the support they’ve already received.

“I very sadly had to turn away some people who came for food. One guy said he had waited for his Italian sandwich all week.”

While acknowledging that late-night bites are scarce in this city, Jerome and Josh are also mindful of their staff.

“We will open every day at noon, and our kitchen will close at 10 p.m. I don’t want to keep my cooks here all night. But Josh and I have ideas for some late-night bar snacks after the kitchen closes, like pretzels. The bar will be open until 1 a.m. six days a week, closing on Mondays.”

That’s a great tip for all of us who like having lunch at 3:30 p.m., when most lunch spots are already closed for the day and dinner places don’t open until 5 or 6 p.m. I bet those Italian sandwiches are a magic cure for overindulgence.

Josh chimes in with a smile and electric energy: “I’m incredibly excited. And like Jerome said, it took a lot for us to get to this point, and it’s cool to see us grow every day. Jerome is one of those people who attracts great people around him. When I met him five years ago, it was a weird chance of fate. We met by chance on Bull Street through a mutual friend. During that time, he was working at Lone Wolf. From then on, I hung out with Jerome basically every week; I started one of my other businesses sitting at Lone Wolf and chatting with him. I started the Ruth Sembrano Foundation sitting at that bar, a nonprofit where we build schools and hospitals in poor communities across the Philippines. I would tell Jerome everything when he was bartending—he was always so encouraging.”

Josh shared the spontaneity of their partnership: “Last year, I was getting out of the army and I was visiting Jerome at one of his other jobs. I saw a look in his face, and I was in a weird time in my life getting out of the army, so I proposed we open a bar together. He looked at me and said—F yeah dude, let’s go do it—and two weeks later, we signed for this building.”

Josh shared: “We got to work. I signed the lease. Jerome ripped down the ceiling, and after the ceiling was ripped down, I said—it’s too late to go back now—” Jerome and Josh share a laugh with marvel and a bit of exhaustion, but tons of shared joy.

Jerome says they are making this place for the city they know and love: “We welcome industry people, the locals—they are like family. There are so many tourists in this city, and I’m not knocking the tourists, but we also need a place for us.”

I hear it often, Savannah is like a big small city: you may run into 10 or 20 friends any given night just visiting your regular watering holes. That’s the magic of supporting local bars and connecting with the regulars and owners. Rome’s will be a great addition to these spots, in walking proximity to The Wormhole, Moodright’s, and Lone Wolf Lounge, among others.

From the lips of Jerome and Josh: “This coming Friday, we are going to have our grand opening with a bunch of local people. We will have a vintage flea market in our parking lot, and Jose Ray as the DJ. And then we will have a small celebration afterward inside the building.”

Vendors will include Tote Sum Thrift, Papa Jawns Vintage, Extra Pulp Vintage, CUBUS VTG, Sit Tight Vintage, Fiddler Supply Co., and Marabou Lingerie.

I highly recommend a visit to Rome’s THIS Friday at 6 p.m. for their very exciting grand opening. Come out to support our local peeps in style, have a drink or two, and save me a pierogi.

Love always,

Vanessa