Renowned architect, Richard Snapp, designed this smart 'contemporary beach' style edifice to accommodate the unparalleled panoramic 160 degree Pacific Ocean view. Majestic and craggy rock formations (aka 'sea stacks') including the famed monolith 'Face Rock' are focal points in the breathtaking vista of surf and sand.
Lord Bennett's has been owned and operated since it's inception in 1989 by master chef/ owner Rich Iverson. This Culinary Institute of America alumnus credits the people that work for him as a paramount ingredient of his restaurant's success.
If your modus vivendi is cosmopolitan or carefree you will feel comfortable here. The crew casually pampers without being attentive to a fault.
At Lord Bennett's they don't open a lot of cans. Almost everything including salad dressings, sauces, soups, desserts, and in-house baked goods, are made from scratch with the very freshest ingredients available. Local produce, fruits, fish and meat are utilized when in season.
The menu like the wine list is well-chosen and diverse. A plethora of specialty seafood, fowl, and meat selections are served here. Some standouts are the popular Seafood Combination Plate (Grilled fish with scallops, prawns, steamer clams, mussels, sautéed in garlic butter, with deep fried calamari).
Another is the generous New York Steak (Char-broiled and served with a green peppercorn, brandy, cream, and demi-glace sauce).
Some examples of daily specials are the Kumomoto Oysters on the half shell, Oregon Salmon grilled with a black bean salsa and Hawaiian Ahi blackened with Cajun spices and a raspberry Buerre Blanc. The Clam Chowder and Shrimp Bisque are legendary here.
The architecture of flavors in such dishes as the Lamb Chops, Pork Loin, Veal Bolognese, Steak Diane, and Sole are subtle and complex. The aforementioned as well as brunch offerings: Eggs Rancheros and the Crab Enchilada owe much of their success to Iverson's sauces. They are a triumph!
Cheesy scalloped potatoes or the singular 'baked stuffer' are a stellar choice for your starch. Crisp stir fried vegetables flawlessly compliment the entrées.
Presentation and preparation illustrate the near-perfect blend of art and craft that issues forth from this gleaming, well provisioned kitchen.
Lord Bennett's downstairs lounge has ONE THING that is currently unavailable anywhere else: The long-running Torturer of Tourists & Golfers Show. Outta-towners, locals, and golfers can listen, dance, sing-along, or take home a tailor made 'musical memory' via the 'audience involvement' aspect of this often hilarious act.
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Lord Bennett
From Bandon, Ireland
to Bandon, Oregon
The presence of ethnic populations in communities adds richness to their cultural heritage. Scandinavians made up the majority of foreign-born in Coos County's early history. However, immigrants arrived from many other countries including Canada, England, China, Germany, and Ireland. Among the most influential was George Bennett.
George Bennett was born in Bandon, Cork County, Ireland, in 1827. Among his classmates and fellow Bandonites was Henry H. Baldwin, who would later figure prominently in Coos history as a pioneer homesteader and survivor of the 1852 wreak of the Captain Lincoln. Bennett, and his wife, whom he had married in 1853, had three sons and a daughter. He attended Devonshire Academy and earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from Trinity College in Dublin.
In May 1873 Bennett, his sons Joseph W. and George A., and a friend named George Sealy sailed on the schooner City of Baltimore for New York. Mrs. Bennett and their daughter remained in Ireland, never joining the rest of the family in far-off Oregon. The foursome crossed the United States railroad, arriving in San Francisco. From there they boarded the steamship Eastport for the Coos region. After a brief stay in Empire City, they made the difficult journey overland at Isthmus Slough, eventually reaching the mouth of the Coquille River.
Here they found a sparsely populated, densely vegetated site known as "The Ferry". No stores, hotels, or businesses were nearby. Bennett viewed it as an ideal location for future economic development, close to vast stands of timber, the ocean, and the mouth of a navigable river. Rich soil was suitable for agricultural endeavors. He bought Thompson "Tommy" Lowe's donation land claim as well as property to the north and south and on the beach. Here in 1874 he established Bandon, named after his hometown. (He give the origin of the name as deriving from an English Puritan settlement in the south of Ireland, dating from the late 1500s).
He served as Justice of the Peace, participated in community affairs, and served as official observer for the United States Weather Bureau. He may be almost as well remembered as the person who introduced gorse, also known as furze, to Oregon's South Coast. The yellow-flowered, spiny, European shrub is highly flammable and nearly impossible to eradicate. Growing thick and wild, this oily evergreen fueled Bandon's devastating fire in 1936.
In addition to writing histories of both Bandons, his literary efforts extended to poetry praising the splendors of Coos County and condemning the hazards of Beaver Slough. In a two-part poem written in 1876, he expressed his deep displeasure about the nearly insurmountable difficulties of traversing Beaver Slough. Two verses follow:
" If you wish to go from Coaled, to 'our beautiful Coquille, 'tis much easier far, without a car, to go straight through Hell...And the rushes and sedge, they make a hedge that cannot be pierced by man. And the bears and cats, the beavers and rats, will devour you if they can." In its completion is the six-stanza poem he wrote in 1887 entitled, The Bandon Beach:
" O, we love to stroll where the billows roll on a cheerful and cloudless day; And roam o're the strands, with their jeweled sands and watch the wild waves at play. The water it raves in the sounding caves,in the gloomy and dark defiles-Rushing and dashing ,seething and splashing; through the echoing, somber isles. Or , rippling in ripples, smiles and dimples, they steal up so softly and slow, To start some pet, whom ther often met on their fair shores long ago. Sitting on rock, beyond the shock of the incoming angry wave, We think of this life, its sorrows and strife and the life that's beyond the grave. There, with shining band, in summer land, in the land of ancient story, We hope we will be, through eternity, in happiness, peace and glory. Then cheer up, sad one! Come , take courage, man! The heavens are brilliant with light! And the glad'ning ray of the coming day peeps through,-you've passed the night!
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