A new menu, a new chef, and new paint on the walls.

Brian Welch has a new concept for his restaurant, formerly called Pomodores, located on Cranberry Highway (Route 28) in West Wareham. And he's hoping people are hungry for the change.

Welch recently opened Pomodores with a new name: Grille 28. He had a soft opening for the Americana-style restaurant on January 12 and opened officially with a ribbon- cutting attended by Town Administrator Mark Andrews and Board of Selectmen Chair Walter Cruz on February 9.

Grille 28 serves hearty American fare, such as pot roast and fish and chips -- a far cry from the Italian cuisine of Pomodores.

"[It's] a trendy, comfort food type of thing," Welch explained. "I had to do a lot of change and basically start from scratch."

A tough economy, competition from the restaurants across the street in Wareham Crossing, and lack of a strong marketing strategy caused the six year old Pomodores to close down in 2011, Welch said.

Now he has a new strategy and is looking to take advantage of online marketing and social networking techniques.

"It's not like it used to be," Welch explained about the old strategies of running a restaurant. "I was really weak in [marketing] in the previous place."

Welch, who has been in the restaurant business for 27 years and has owned Barnacle Bill's Seafood in East Wareham for the past 16, has coordinated with Fun 107.1 personality Neil White -- a Wareham resident -- and the station's "half-price hook up" deal. The deal lets listeners buy gift certificates to restaurants for half the price, and the restaurants get free advertising in return for the offer.

Welch plans to use Facebook and other social networking sites to interact with customers and offer coupons.

Part of Welch's plan for success is to offer a little bit of variety to the typical Americana menu, such as meatballs stuffed with salami, prosciutto, capicola, and mozzarella or the mac and cheese with sun-dried tomatoes and shiitake mushrooms.

"It's definitely family oriented," Welch said about his menu, "but at the same time it's a great place for a couple to dine."

He's also offering a late-night menu that will be open from the time the dinner menu closes until 12 a.m. Most nights dinner service stops at 9 p.m., but on Fridays and Saturdays it ends at 10 p.m. The bar stays open until 1 a.m.

"We know the feeling of getting out at 11 p.m.," Chef Jarrod Ross explained about the lack of good places to eat after his late night shifts in the past.

Grille 28 has not made the full transition into its new identity, however.

The sign for Pomodores still hangs below the much bigger sign for Grille 28 in front of its 2424 Cranberry Highway location. That is because Welch is waiting for the liquor license from Pomodores to transfer over to his new restaurant, a process that will take two to three more weeks, Welch said. For now, the bar is operating under Pomodores license.

But for all other purposes, the transition has been made. The soft opening without all of the usual hoopla was beneficial because it gave the staff a chance to get into the swing of things, Ross said.

"We can handle pretty much whatever comes our way now," he said.