Lambs Creek Food and Spirits brings new life to old restaurant

MANSFIELD - Nelle Rounsaville and Susan Cummings have brought an old abandoned restaurant here back to life.

Their new venture, Lambs Creek Food and Spirits Inc., opened in early September, in the former Jimmy Crackers Buffet next to the Comfort Inn off Lambs Creek Road.

Rounsaville of Wellsboro owns the new venture and Cummings, who worked for 17 years at the Wellsboro Diner until she and husband David bought and operated the True Value Hardward Store on Main Street, manages it.

Executive chef and general manager is Ruppert Robbins, who Rounsaville brought in from Syracuse, N.Y., where he worked as a business review specialist for Cisco Foods.

Robbins also worked as a chef at the Boatyard Grille, and was executive chef at the Aurora Foundation, Aurora, N.Y.

He says his favorite dishes to create are regional American, Italian and "fusing European with American ingredients."

Tom Harris is the restaurant's breakfast and lunch chef, and his specialties are soups, egg dishes, homemade sticky buns, rice and bread pudding.

The restaurant still is rounding out its staff, and is seeking a good sous chef.

With tasty food and reasonable prices plus great service, the triple play makes for a winning combination.

Rounsaville, who owned the La Petit Auberge Bed and Breakfast in Wellsboro also owns the Wellsboro Diner.

She said she bought the restaurant at auction and spent more than a million dollars and the better part of a year making it into a classy family style restaurant utilizing "mostly local" contractors and materials, she said.

With seating for more than 200 people, the restaurant features a separate dining room for smaller gatherings with its own fireplace.

She saw the ornate hand-carved oak bar in an issue of Architectural Digest and traveled to Atlanta, Ga., to buy it. It was created in Ireland.

The newest addition to the six day a week eatery is Sunday Brunch, which features a carving station with turkey, ham and roast beef.

"It's on the hill over the hill," she said with a smile.

The next addition to the restaurant will be a wood burning pizza oven, which Robbins said would probably be there by early next year.