Blondies re-opens in SK with new outlook

Owner hopes to put lessons she’s learned elsewhere to work here in this market.

To Lisa Marshall, it’s all about the people.

As owner of Blondie’s Restaurant and Lounge at 1501 S.E. Piperberry Way, she focuses on giving her customers what they want.

Marshall, 44, previously ran the restaurant in the Key Center area of Lake Bay.

She also owned the Key Center Shell station and delis in Gig Harbor and Key Center.

After three years there, where she said she learned a lesson about doing “what I wanted to do and not what the community wanted,” she closed Blondie’s for four months and then re-opened on Feb. 12 in Port Orchard.

So why settle here?

“It was more that we went in looking at different areas and we really like the people here,” she explained. “We wanted the middle class and wanted an age group of 40 and up.”

She added, “I just like the everyday person. I was raised in a middle-class family. You don’t just throw away your money.”

As a result, her restaurant, with 5,000 feet of dining space, has a “lodge or living-room feel,” complete with a fireplace and an earth-tone color scheme.

“It feels like you’re eating at home, but you don’t have to cook and you don’t have to clean.”

And furthermore, “This isn’t a chain. We cook every meal sautéed for each plate.”

The lunch menu is comprised of sandwiches, salads and burgers. Offerings include a crab quesadilla ($10), the “Jazz Jamm” salad, which includes spring greens, broiled chicken breast, egg, gorgonzola and bacon ($11), a steak sandwich ($12) and the Blondie Burger ($11).

Dinner offerings include a selection of steaks ($24-$33), seafood, including a yellow-fin Ahi tuna ($23) and sea scallops ($21), and an array of unique pastas, including the “Back-Up Singers,” made of fettuccine alfredo with tiger prawns sautéed in honey thai sauce ($21), and “The Opera,” a fettuccine carbonara with olives and bacon ($17).

Blondie’s is open Tuesday through Saturday.

Lunch is offered from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The lounge is open from 3 to 4 p.m., but only appetizers are available. (Offerings include crab, spinach and artichoke dip for $12 and tenderloin medallions for $13).

Dinner is served from 4 to 9 p.m.

There also is a private banquet room, but, “If a party of 30 comes in, they pay for 30 meals. We’re here to serve the people.”

Marshall said that she doesn’t charge a banquet room fee, but does require reservations. Her one condition is that the head of the party selects three entrees that are available to order by those in attendance.

The rationale: They don’t have the staff to accommodate 30 different meals for a 30-person party.

The lounge is open until 9 p.m. on weekdays and 10 on Saturdays — early by most standards. But Marshall has her reasons.

“We’re not the party,” she said. “We’re the place you go before the party.”

In the future, Marshall hopes to expand to offer four-course dinners, and some comedy shows. But she still has her eye on the key element: her customers.

“I can be the place where the guy proposes to his girlfriend,” she said, “or a couple celebrates their 25th anniversary.”

Contact Port Orchard Independent Staff Writer Chris Chancellor at cchancellor@portorchardindependent.com or (360) 876-4414.

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