Blanchard's first gain popularity about 12 years ago after the owner's wrote a book ("A Trip to the Beach") about how they decide to move to the island and set up a restaurant. When it was first published the book (and the owners) made the rounds of all the TV Talk shows. The book, of course, made for very interesting reading and a reputation was born.

Over the years, patrons gave the restaurant mixed reviews - raves seem to come at times when the owners were there and the restaurant got less than stellar reviews when owners were off-island. As time went by the owners spent lees and less time actually running the restaurant while they pursued other interests adding to the mixed reviews.

Like many people we read the book and felt a desire to eat there but the meal just didn't live up to the hype. It was such a disappoint for us that we've never gone back - there's simply too many other restaurants on the island where the food is consistently very good so we'd rather not take the chance of a mediocre meal because the Blanchard's may or may not be on-island the day we dine.