Category: Published Articles

Disappointed Bradenton Blues Festival won’t return this year? A new Lakewood Ranch music festival will feature “blues artists from around the world.”

Jimmy Geurts

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Soon after the announcement that one of Sarasota-Manatee’s largest annual music festivals will not return this year, a new event featuring the former festival’s artistic director has been announced.

The inaugural Lakewood Ranch Blues Festival will take place 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Dec. 7 at Waterside Park in Lakewood Ranch’s Sarasota County development Waterside Place, according to a press release. The new event comes after last month’s announcement that the Bradenton Blues Festival, which took place for 12 years at Bradenton’s Riverwalk (and, during the pandemic, LECOM Park) would be canceled.

Entertainment company Independent Jones, whose president is Morgan Bettes Angell, and Paul E. Benjamin will partner on the Lakewood Ranch Blues Festival. Benjamin was the artistic director of the Bradenton Blues Festival that was produced by nonprofit organization Realize Bradenton, whose founding director Johnette Isham died last year.

“It was important to us to keep the legacy that was created by Johnette and Realize Bradenton alive,” Benjamin said in a statement. “Morgan Bettes Angell and I have teamed up to create a new festival: The Lakewood Ranch Blues Festival. After looking at a number of places we decided that Lakewood Ranch was the best place to host the event, which will draw in blues fans from across the world.”

“The blues are like coming home for me,” Bettes Angell said in a statement. “The Bradenton Blues Festival was the first festival I was a part of producing. Now we’re excited to bring a world-class festival to Lakewood Ranch.”

Over a decade, Bradenton Blues Festival expanded to an event that stretched as long as three days and attracted attendees not only from throughout Florida, but other states and countries as well. It also featured a lineup of internationally touring blues acts ranging from established veterans to rising stars such as Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, who played the 2018 festival and visited Manatee High School as part of the Blues in the Schools program before winning a Grammy and opening for The Rolling Stones and Vampire Weekend.

Lakewood Ranch Blues Festival’s own lineup of acclaimed blues musicians, including Grammy-nominated and Blues Music Award-winning artists, will feature Danielle Nicole, Vanessa Collier, Kat Riggins, Monster Mike Welch, Mitch Woods & His Rocket 88’s, Dylan Triplett and Melody Angel. The festival will also offer food and craft vendors, interactive activities and an outdoor setting, with Kingfisher Lake next to the festival.

Tickets will go on sale soon and cost $75 advance and $90 day of, with a limited number of VIP tickets, according to the press release. Tickets will be sold online at lakewoodranchbluesfestival.com, where those interested can also sign up to receive updates including lineup announcements, exclusive food and drink releases, and more.

The gastropub will feature ownership that’s also operated multiple New York City restaurants.

Jimmy Geurts

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

A new gastropub, with ownership that’s operated other restaurants in New York City, plans to soon debut in Lakewood Ranch’s Sarasota County development Waterside Place.

Allswell hopes to open by September, said co-owner Tory Delany. Allswell’s owners have also operated New York City eateries such as The Malt House, a tavern with two Manhattan locations, and Southern California-style Mexican restaurant/mezcal and tequila bar Mezcali, also in Manhattan.

Delany, who moved to Lakewood Ranch in 2022, felt with all the fellow newcomers to the area that there was a market for the type of restaurants as those ones in New York City, which she described as “high-energy” with “excellent service, top-quality food.”

“Not to say that we didn’t experience that down here, but that we saw with such a rapidly growing community that there was room for many other restaurants and bars to open here to accommodate all of the new residents of Lakewood Ranch and the surrounding areas,” Delany said.

Delany described the intended ambience of Allswell as a “pub setting that serves high-quality food and high-quality drinks, with the focus being on upscale comfort foods with a twist.” Some potential menu item examples she gave included duck shepherd’s pie, bone-in beef rib with black garlic barbecue, cod fish and chips with English pea puree and malt vinegar aioli, short rib grilled cheese, burrata and stone fruit salad, pork belly sliders, Dungeness crab queso, and BFG (baked, fried, grilled) wings.

Allswell will also be full-liquor and offer handcrafted cocktails, a craft beer selection incorporating local breweries, and wine. Delany said the restaurant space will seat around 150 people: about 70 indoors and about 80 outdoors, with a wraparound terrace that will include a private terrace garden for birthday parties, baby showers and other events.

The gastropub will join a list of Waterside Place dining and drinking destinations that also includes the already open Osteria 500, Good Liquid Brewing Co., Korê Steakhouse and Forked at Waterside. Other upcoming openings include Deep Lagoon Seafood & Oyster House, Mexican restaurant and tequila bar Agave Bandido, sushi bar and Japanese kitchen Dear Fish.

Allswell will be at 7500 Island Cove Terrace, Suite 102, Lakewood Ranch, and plans to be open daily starting at 11 a.m., with brunch on weekends and holidays and later closing hours on weekends as well.

Email entertainment reporter Jimmy Geurts at jimmy.geurts@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism by subscribing.