Enjoy farm-to-table meals, outdoor adventures at new Lake Norman eatery, events center
A 64-acre regional attraction featuring a barbecue-focused farm-to-table restaurant and an outdoor activities center debuts at Lake Norman on Wednesday.
Cameron and Sheila Cane’s Bohemian Cattle Co. is set to open on their ranch and farm on Island Point Road in Sherrills Ford, featuring:
The lunch-and-dinner restaurant in a massive barn-like setting.
“We’re kind of barbecue-centric,” said Colby Brownlee, Bohemian Cattle Co. executive chef and pit master by way of Texas and California.
“We have central-Texas style brisket, Carolina-style pulled pork, Alabama-style chicken, half and whole chicken,” Brownlee of Bohemian Cattle Co. told CharlotteFive on Tuesday. “We have Duroc pork ribs. We got a lot of meats.”
Occasional specialties will include tri-tip barbecue cooked on the restaurant’s Santa Maria-style grill. Brownlee described the grill as “kind of a throwback to Argentina, and the cowhands back in California. That’s California’s claim to fame with barbecue.”
“And we’re going to cook our steaks on that, our tri-tips, one of our versions of ribs, and our wings,” he said.
Wood for the grill includes red oak, white oak, hickory, pecan and cherry wood, he said.
And Bohemian Cattle Co. has a gargantuan, 1,300-gallon Texas-style offset pit smoker. “It’s one of the largest I’ve ever smoked on, and I’ve smoked on a lot of different ones,” Brownlee said.
Seafood is another highlight of the menu.
“My executive sous chef Matt Pharr is a genius with seafood,” Brownlee said. “We’re going to have shrimp skewers on all the time, we’re going to have scallops, shark during Shark Week. We’re going to have very high quality, high-caliber seafood.”
A butcher shop, with fresh cuts of premium Black Angus beef.
“We raise all of our cattle down here,” Brownlee said of the Black Angus on the property. “Those we’re going to sell out of the butcher shop. We’ll have rib eyes hopefully as often as we’re not sold out. We’ll have sirloins, and unusual kinds, such as super-tender Denver steaks.”
“This is going to be something really special for the entire agricultural community here,” Cameron Cane said on Tuesday. “If we’re not getting it from our fields, we’re getting it from local farms here, local slaughterhouses. We’re trying to keep as many of our products as local as possible to really support the agricultural community here in town.”
A creamery, with Blue Bunny ice cream.
Activities, which include 18 holes of disc golf; fields for soccer, football and other sports; and kids activities such as scavenger hunts, panning for gold in two streams and searching the woods for Bigfoot.
“We have two 9-foot cutouts of Sasquatch hidden in the woods,’ said Brad Bonning, Bohemian Cattle Co. brand manager. “If you find him and take a selfie and post it on social media, you get a free appetizer.”
Corporate events, including in a 100-capacity Moonshiner Shack equipped with multimedia for presentations.
Fun community events, including a Haunted Woods in late September and all of October, Bonning said. The event will include special effects and a cabin (the Moonshiner Shack) “that you’ve got to walk through to make it out alive,” he said.
A campground also is planned.
Bohemian Cattle Co. is about 35 miles northwest of uptown Charlotte.
The entrance to the property looks just like you’d expect when entering a ranch, with an overhead Bohemian Cattle Co. sign and rustic setting.
White fencing runs along both sides of the drive to the restaurant from the stone entrance, and woods flank the land off three sides of the large barn.
General manager Jim Ragin calls Bohemian Cattle Co. “a destination spot. You’re going to have people coming from so many different areas, from South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia. It’s going to give them so many things to do in one destination.”
The Canes sold a brewery equipment company they built into one of the nation’s largest to pursue their dream of owning a small farm and cattle ranch.
At Bohemian Cattle Co., they’re sharing their dream with the rest of us.
As part of Bohemian Cattle Co.’s grand-opening festivities, the local One Paper Crane Duo will perform 6-9 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 2, and country music artist Ryan Perry will perform 7-10 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4.
Bohemian Cattle Co.
Location: 8178 Island Ford Road, Sherrills Ford, NC, 28673.
Cuisine: American, steaks
Instagram: @bohemiancattleco
