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While people might first think of homes when they think of Lakewood Ranch, the community hosts a hotbed of businesses that provide services and jobs.
For 30 years, Lakewood Ranch has attracted business owners who came, built and flourished.
Such was the case of Karen and Malcolm Ronney, who arrived in Lakewood Ranch in 2006 with the quintessential American dream in their heads.
The Ronneys came to Lakewood Ranch from Scotland, where they operated a hotel bar and restaurant. They were familiar with the Bradenton-Sarasota area, having vacationed there several times.
Karen Ronney's family has a condo on Lido Key. After years of operating their Scottish business, they felt like it was time for a permanent move.
"Scottish winters are long and wet and cold," Karen Ronney said. "Here, you're in heaven. We had to come up with a way to make it work."
The couple's plan was to open a restaurant for five years and see how it went. That restaurant was MacAllisters Grill and Tavern, a Scottish pub located on Main Street where McGrath's Irish Ale House is now.
The Ronneys loved MacAllisters and it outlived their five-year plan, but in December 2014, the couple decided to make a change. They sold MacAllisters and in August 2015 opened The Granary, a breakfast and lunch restaurant on Lakewood Ranch Boulevard. The reasons for the change in restaurant were logistical, Karen Ronney said. The family had two young children at the time, and running a Scottish pub meant working long nights. Switching to a daytime establishment meant the Ronneys could spent more time with their kids.
It's a change the couple is happy to have made — even though, at the time, some of their customers thought they were making a mistake by abandoning their Main Street location.
"People thought we were nuts to come to a strip mall," Karen Ronney said. "But we believed in what we did and in our following. And luckily, we got a lot of customers who used to frequent (MacAllisters) to come up here. They have been regulars for almost 10 years now."
The first few months, everything was moving "100 miles an hour," Ronney said. From August to December 2015, the restaurant was inundated with customers as it was the only place of its kind and people wanted to try it. Things slowed down in January and February 2016, but once the pace picked back up that April and May, the couple felt confident that they were doing something right.
The Ronneys, who live in Mallory Park, love The Granary and their Lakewood Ranch customers as much now as they did when it opened. The restaurant largely serves traditional food with a Granary twist, like a breakfast version of grilled cheese that includes scrambled eggs, tomato and onion, or breakfast tacos that come with a side of citrus gazpacho. The menu was created by the Ronneys and general manager/head chef Hector Liemann, who also worked with the Ronneys at MacAllisters.
While the exact dishes were created by trial and error, the trio knew it wanted its menu to fit its clientele. Twenty years ago, that meant retirees, Karen Ronney said, as they had disposable income and a lot of free time.
In 2024, things have changed a bit. Many people in the area work from home, she said, so they will bring their laptops and send emails while eating a breakfast sandwich, or sit down at lunchtime to get out of their house for an hour. Sometimes stay-at-home moms will come in for a mimosa after dropping their kids at school and to catch up with a friend.
On the weekends, the restaurant sees more families. And yes, there are still plenty of retirees. It's a mix of people that the Ronneys enjoy seeing every week. Come often enough, and the Granary staff will have customers' beverage of choice, be it coffee or otherwise, out to them before they even ask for it, a sign of how much the restaurant cares about its customers.
Karen Ronney's favorite memories of the restaurant all have to do with those customers. Knowing that the Ronneys are from Scotland, she said, customers often ask the couple for travel advice. Karen Ronney said she feels like a tour guide sometimes, offering recommendations on hotels and things to see, or to avoid. Everyone visiting Scotland must go to Edinburgh, she said, but she also advises people to hop on a train to reach more rural areas of the country. Since Scotland "could fit five times over" within Florida's boundaries, she said, visitors can see much of the country in a single trip.
The couple is also close with the restaurant staff. Though there has been some turnover since 2015, many have stayed for years, and seeing how their families grow and celebrating milestones with them is rewarding, they said.
There will not be any moving in the family's foreseeable future. Perhaps decades from now the Ronneys will go back to Scotland to be closer to family, Karen Ronney said, but if the family stays in America, they are staying in Lakewood Ranch. When not operating The Granary, they take their children to see a movie at Lakewood Ranch Cinemas or to The Fish Hole Miniature Golf.
"We feel like we are part of the community here," Ronney said. "We're doing well. There's no need to go anywhere else."
