Reprinted from the Best of SLO found in New Times Magazine San Luis Obispo.
Original content �2001 New Times Magazine San Luis Obispo, CA USA.
Food and fun at Se�or Sancho�s
Bartender Dave Huffman smiles across the bar as he listens to a conversation at a nearby table. The rush of the lunchtime crowd has passed. It's siesta time.
It's quiet in the cavernous, bright, and colorfully decorated Mexican restaurant and bar in Paso Robles known as Se�or Sancho�s. On a warm spring afternoon, the Spring Street restaurant feels cool, almost cave-like. Fans on the high ceilings whirl slowly.
The artwork of John Ramos, along with a mural painted by Ken Fuller of a rugged coastal scene, give a warm and relaxed touch to the quiet that has settled upon the place. Indeed, this could be Baja on a lazy spring afternoon.
But the stillness is merely a momentary lapse before the tempo picks up again when regulars begin strolling in for their favorite Mexican dishes and beverages.
Until then, the only sounds in the restaurant are the clink of an occasional plate and some background music. Then a customer leaving the restaurant shouts to owner Carlos Leyva,
"Congratulations! You deserve it!"
"You think so?" Leyva asks.
"That�s why we keep coming back."
The selection of Se�or Sancho�s as Best Mexican Restaurant in this year�s New Times competition was an upset; the restaurant beat out Pepe Delgado�s, which held the honor for more than five years.
"It took us 11 years," says Leyva, who opened the restaurant with co-owner Marianne Leyva in March, 1990. They opened a second restaurant in August, 1997, at Oak Creek Plaza on Creston Road at the east end of town. Both locations share a festive flavor.
It�s a family restaurant that caters to adults and children both. Fun and variety are the name of the game here. The bar, for example, includes a selection of 120 different tequilas. Children are treated to their own menus, balloons, ice cream, and complimentary candies from pi�atas.
Adults are handed an enormous three-paneled, double-sided menu that includes sections titled "The Whole Enchilada," "Big, Big Burritos," "Sancho�s Specialties," and more.
Leyva makes sure that the restaurant and bar, in both locations, is a special place. He says regular patrons come from as far away as San Francisco, stopping to eat on their way to LA.
It�s a great place, he says, because he and his more than 50 employees make sure that customers feel Se�or Sancho�s is their restaurant. Everything is carefully packaged to their liking, he says.
The back of bartender Huffman�s T-shirt reads, "One Tequila! Two Tequila! Three Tequila! Floor!" One of many sold in the restaurant, the shirt suggests a more lively, playful and boisterous atmosphere than is apparent now.
Atmosphere, in fact, is what keeps people coming back, says Marianne Leyva. People feel at home here.
"We take care of our people," adds Carlos, referring to both customers and employees. Some employees have been with the restaurant since the beginning.
Linda McLaughlin, one of six managers, scurries about making sure customers are happy. She started with the Leyvas when the restaurant opened.
"It was pretty crazy back then," McLaughlin says as she hurries to the kitchen. "We did it all."
At times, she and Leyva would be the only two people working, taking care of everything: Hosting, serving, tending the bar�and turning over the cassette tape every half hour, to make sure there was music.
Today the business hums along smoothly. Operations manager Jeff White ensures that no one is overwhelmed. He oversees six managers, three at each location. On weekends he helps out in the Creston Road bar. Bartending gives him a chance to roll up his sleeves and work closely with the other employees, and besides, he says, he loves bartending.�"It�s my passion."
White insists on serving a visitor one of his favorite desserts: deep-fried ice cream. "You haven�t tried anything until you�ve tried this," he says.
Out comes a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream rolled in a granola�corn flake�graham cracker mix, dipped in the fryer, then smothered with chocolate sauce and whipped cream�delicious, decadent, and devastating to any diet.
Just one more tasty, festive indication of why Senior Sancho�s won this year�s first-place award.
