Hampton -- "It's exciting" said popular restaurateur Ron Boucher of his soon to open Ron's Landing on Ocean Boulevard. The deck on the front of the former Bounty and Blue Fish (restaurants) will offer spectacular views of the ocean's expanse from Boar's Head to Salisbury. The building will seat 30 more diners and handle more cars than his former Ron's Beach House fine dining restaurant. He is completely renovating the building to provide intimate Mediterranean style dining and food that made the Beach House so popular. "Same menu" said Boucher, "we are designing our kitchen to handle our kind of food.

About 80 percent of the former Beach House staff will return and Chef Jeff Schneider, who has been with Boucher since 1982, including five years at the Beach House will be the Head Chef. Boucher, who has trained Schneider (Boucher is a graduate of the famous Culinary Institute of America) says, "I will also be in the kitchen most of the time." Ron's brother Bob Boucher will be a partner in the new venture with Ron.

Boucher and his brother have purchased the lot north of the restaurant for parking and will have valet parking for all who want to use that service. Both the regular and handicap entrance will be from the parking area on the side of the building with direct access to the second level where there will be a horseshoe bar, large picture windows for ocean views and entry to the deck. Contractors were putting up drywall and "we will follow with paintbrushes" said Boucher, who has been working from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm on the renovation. Plans are to open early in February and surely in time for Valentine's Day diners.

The Beach House, just north of the new Ron's Landing at Rocky Bend, closed several months ago and sits vacant, for sale by the Restaurant Broker. "People can not understand why we would close because we were so successful and ironically that success forced the closure," said Boucher, who was the victim of a partnership disagreement. "That is behind us now and we even changed the name to avoid any future disagreement with the former partners…It was a terrible waste."