RANCH'S MAIN STREET ADDS A SCOTTISH FLAIR
LAKEWOOD RANCH - When a visitor asked Karen Ronney how the Scots eat lamb, she replied, unblinking, "With a knife and fork."
Then her face exploded in a "Got ya" grin.
On Tuesday, Ronney and her husband, Malcolm, who are from Troon, will open their new Scottish restaurant, MacAllisters, near the fountain at the end of Main Street in Lakewood Ranch.
But their menu, filled with 73 different brands of Scotch whiskey, hand-cut steaks in the $18 to $23 range, lamb, salmon, Scottish puffed pastry, called haggis bites, and a "Braveheart" burger, may not be their key asset.
That would be their outgoing personalities and those great sounding Scottish brogues.
"Ever since Karen was little she has loved meeting with people," Marion Bickerstaff, Karen's mother, visiting from Scotland, said of her daughter.
The Ronneys were high school sweethearts back in Scotland and still seem to light up a room when together.
The couple, now in their 30s, owned the Anchorage Hotel, a family business in Troon, for seven years before selling in 2003. The Anchorage had a 150-seat tavern, 60-seat restaurant and 18-bedroom hotel.
Believing Lakewood Ranch will support a restaurant offering casual American fare along with some Scottish flair, the Ronneys have invested nearly $1 million into the 5,500-square-foot MacAllisters named after a famous Troon caddy.
"Once the buzz gets started that this is all here, we feel it will be like St. Armand's Circle, a place to shop and dine," Karen Ronney said.
The Ronneys will offer patrons a PWA card, not to be confused with a PGA card. The all-in-fun Professional Whiskey Association card enables the patron to pick one of three 18-hole golf courses and try a shot of whiskey identified by the number of a hole.
Each time a whiskey is purchased, the patron's PWA card is swiped. When the customer finishes all 18 holes, some sort of recognition, as yet undecided, will be bestowed.
"These are single-malt whiskeys with a whole range of flavors," said Eric Desilets, the restaurant's bar manager. "You can get smooth, sweet, rich, spicy and even a smoky flavor when the barley is smoked with peat."
There is one whiskey aged 25 years that costs $80 a glass.
The restaurant has the atmosphere of a Scottish castle with lots of stone and booths that are trimmed in plaid and purple, a nod to the Scottish love for tartan and the purple thistle.
"We are the only country whose official flower is a weed," Malcolm Ronney said. "But we love it because it's tenacious."
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Richard Dymond
Herald Staff Writer
Herald Tribune
Published May 24, 2006
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