Business - Business News

POSTED: Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009

Hilltop Restaurant to install "Blarney Stone West"

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Hilltop Restaurant is creating Blarney Stone West, an interactive American version of the Irish bluestone steeped in lore.

"We wanted to celebrate the Hilltop's 50th anniversary with something that would last as long as this restaurant," said Tom Kilpatrick, who has owned the restaurant with wife, Barb, for the past eight years. "To build the Blarney Stone West sculpture, we're bringing in 50 tons of 100 million-year-old olivine rock from the Twin Sisters mountain area near Mount Baker."

The original Blarney Stone in the Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland, is said to bestow the gift of eloquence upon whoever kisses it.

That's a tradition the Kilpatricks hope to continue at their restaurant along Guide Meridian.

"We expect Blarney Stone West to be completed before the start of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C., in February 2010," Tom Kilpatrick said in a press release. "This will be something fun for local residents and tourists to enjoy."

The restaurant started as the Hilltop Café in 1959. When the Kilpatrics bought it, they knew about plans to widen the Guide to five lanes, which would put the highway's right of way inside the front door. They built a larger restaurant farther back on the property at 5645 Guide Meridian just south of Axton Road. The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The catering side of the business earlier this year opened Windows on the Bay (windowsonthebay.us), an event center at Squalicum Harbor in the Bellingham Yacht Club building.