Over the hill at the Hard Rock Cafe

I'm old enough to remember when showing up for a HeavyHands aerobics class in a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt made you the hottest thing in legwarmers. Today, the brand feels more like a candidate for Oprah's "Where Are They Now?"

Yet the Hard Rock Cafe has just landed at the Mall of America, 11 years after it debuted in the Twin Cities (as an anchor of the failed Block E development in downtown Minneapolis). Even then the brand felt as if it was running on fumes. Even more so when it closed there in 2011.

Mall of America management has demonstrated a knack for pulling in relevant, even red-hot retail stores, yet consistently falters when it comes to the restaurant side of its leasing balance sheet.

Really, is this the best the region's most popular tourist attraction can do? It has been well more than a decade since Las Vegas began to exploit the heady lure of dining-driven commerce; the Mall of America seems hopelessly out of date by comparison.

Today's menu certainly reads as if the past 25 or so years of culinary progress hasn't happened. And not in a self-aware, we-embrace-all-things-retro kind of way, either. It's more about tiresome conformity and lowest-common-denominator cooking.

Take the kitchen's signature dish: ribs. Yanked hot from the grill, there's plenty of succulent, fall-off-the-bone pork, but neither the spice rub nor the liberally brushed sauce leave any lasting impression whatsoever. If there's a predominant flavor note, it's sweet. Where is the spice? The heat? In the world of ribs — a genre that is one of the nation's gustatory glories — this is a major character flaw.

The kitchen's other power category is burgers. They're gargantuan half-pounders and they're fine, I suppose, but all I could think of was the far superior versions I could have been enjoying for the same price upstairs at FireLake Grill & Cocktail House.

A platter-size appetizer assortment might have been the single most depressing item that has been placed before me this year: greasy, skimpy chicken wings. Stale toasted bread topped with flavorless tomatoes artlessly doused in garlic. Dried-out fried chicken strips. Overbaked hollowed-out potatoes filled with bacon bits and a viscous cheese sauce.

Taken in concert, they demonstrate an almost willfully tone-deaf interest in catering to contemporary expectations.

Even the menu's more successful dishes are dullards. My favorite meal turned out to be a grilled club sandwich, albeit one that's indistinguishable from hundreds available elsewhere. A heaping crock of mac-and-cheese, dressed with toasted cheesy breadcrumbs, was palatable but overpriced.

Salads could have been pulled from any competent supermarket deli. A hefty pair of pulled-meat sandwiches had the right mouth-melting texture, but there was no discernible flavor difference between smoked pork and smoked chicken. That's a problem.

Don't search for nuance in the gigantic, sugary desserts. Most of them telegraphed a factory-produced, just-thawed quality.

After hearing my server's far-fetched corporate-speak explanation — the omission helps foster a relationship between customer and server — I was overcome with two emotions: pity for her, and contempt for an ownership that places its hardworking employees in such a preposterous position.

The Hard Rock is also one of the rare food-and-drink establishments that don't bother to tap into the Twin Cities' status as one of the country's great craft beer hubs.

Or so I thought as I eyed the list's 22 options. Finally, I asked my server if the bar poured any locals. Yes, it did. One. The name was on the tip of our server's tongue.

"Seely? Sully? Surrey?" he stammered.

"Surly?" said my friend. Yep. Turns out, it was the most delicious thing I encountered in three visits. That, and the coleslaw.

The chain has once again reached into its rock 'n' roll memorabilia warehouse to display apparel, autographed guitars and other curiosities. But you know what? Meh. In our social-media era — when getting up-close-and-personal with Taylor Swift is just an Instagram click away — the prospect of spying a Swarovski crystal-covered bodysuit that Rihanna once sweated in doesn't possess the cachet it once enjoyed.

This isn't an anti-chain screed. There are plenty that merit devotion, both national — Chipotle and Smashburger come to mind — and local, including Punch Neapolitan Pizza, D'Amico & Sons and One Two Three Sushi.

The Hard Rock, alas, isn't one of them.