Santa Barbara Chicken Ranch serves up mouthwatering Mexican-style entrees
Ema Dorsey
April 23, 2013
Santa Barbara Chicken Ranch offers delicious lunch and dinner choices including chicken, rice, and beans. Credit: Ema Dorsey/The Foothill Dragon Press
Opening its third site on February 26, the Santa Barbara Chicken Ranch, located on 4020 East Main Street serves appetizing, flavorful, and reasonably priced Mexican-style BBQ.
The restaurant is small and charming, with a color scheme of varying shades of brown and light greys, with artificial bull-horn ornaments on the walls to convey a ranch theme.
Its main dish is the tender, mesquite BBQ chicken and tri-tip grilled with authentic mesquite charcoal imported from Mexico, which gives the meat a smoky, wood flavor. The mesquite taste is also combined with spicy seasoning. The seasoning however, is very light as to not overwhelm the delicious mesquite flavor.
Other main orders are burritos with either chicken or tri-tip, a simple bean burrito, rice and cheese burrito for vegetarians, and a combo burrito with both types of mesquite-style meat.
The restaurant offers basic sides of salsa and chips, beans, rice, and your choice of corn or flour tortillas. The salsa, which ranges from mild to spicy, is accompanied by a zesty BBQ sauce bar.
Although they serve coleslaw, marinated onions and some vegetables in the burritos, the menu altogether lacks fresh salads. Otherwise, the menu has a wide variety along with reasonable prices ranging from $6.95 to $32, including family specials.
The restaurant is open from 11a.m. to 10 p.m. all week.
The atmosphere is casual and comfortable. Ordering is done at the cashier counter. The staff is friendly and helpful, always ready to help all types of customers, from assisting large groups in moving tables or helping elderly settle in a seat. The staff also tidies the tables and sweeps the floor consistently, and as a result the resturant is very clean.
Waiting time for food spans from ten to fifteen minutes, but the quality is well worth the wait. Customers may call beforehand and arrive to pick up their order, however delivery is not available.
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