I’m the CEO of the 1980s most viral restaurant, Tony Roma’s. We’re still thriving but viral brands keep turning into pumpkins

Last month, another restaurant concept vanished from my Instagram feed. Six months earlier, they had celebrity investors, 50,000 followers, and lines out the door. Today? Shuttered.

This is becoming a familiar pattern. Brands explode onto social media with fairy-tale success. Then the clock strikes midnight, and they are gone.

I run Tony Roma’s, a 54-year-old brand ranked No. 2 in Newsweek’s Excellence Index, after Starbucks. Our unit count is not what it was in the 1980s,...