Some things, like fine wine and the Mother’s Day brunch at the Historic Santa Maria Inn, continue to improve with age.
Behind the scenes, managers have been planning for months to present the best Mother’s Day grand buffet in the history of the hotel on Sunday, May 12.
And that is saying a lot, considering that the Santa Maria landmark opened in 1917 and has been host to a special brunch on Mother’s Day for more than 70 years.
“We’re historically known for our holiday brunches; they’re synonymous with the name of the Historic Santa Maria Inn,” Food and Beverage Manager Thomas Munoz said.
“We have people that will come for Mother’s Day and on that day they’ll make a reservation for the next brunch,” Munoz said. “For every single brunch that we have—if it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother’s Day—they make reservations before they leave that day for the next one.”
Munoz told me that his adept staff knows exactly which table regular customers prefer, what time they want to be seated, even which server is their favorite, “because they have come religiously every single year—it’s awesome!”
Brunch-goers start with a cup of Starbucks coffee, fresh fruit juice, or the bottomless bubbly and mimosas.
“That’s the best part,” Munoz said.
On Mother’s Day alone, the inn expects to pour 35 cases of the house’s Wycliff sparkling wine.
“We average about 400 to 450 bottles of champagne,” Munoz disclosed. He’s also created a Mother’s Day Champagne cocktail menu for the more adventuresome.
Executive Chef Alex Araizaga has been immersed in the hotel’s large state-of-the-art kitchen, preparing for the enormous undertaking and planning new brunch dishes, such as Cornish hens with wild mushrooms, baked sea bass, and pork chops.
The Mother’s Day brunch carving station offers roasted prime rib of beef, leg of lamb, and honey-glazed bone-in ham.
The seafood station has oysters, caviar, fresh shrimp, mussels, steamed clams, crab legs, and poached whole salmon.
Customers craving more classic breakfast foods can choose from bacon, sausage, eggs Benedict, home-fried potatoes, the waffle bar, and the omelet station.
“Thankfully we have a kitchen that can handle this,” Munoz said. “It’s a lot of prep. The biggest prep is the waffle and omelet stations.”
Imagine how much slicing and dicing of fresh bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes is necessary for an expected 700 to 800 people.
And save room for dessert! The hotel’s Coach Room will be dedicated to desserts; four eight-foot tables will be covered in pies, cakes, chocolate-dipped strawberries, bread pudding, and crème brulee.
And a new brunch staple—an ice cream station—serves eight types of the sweet stuff.
To make room for hundreds of Mother’s Day brunch customers, the Historic Santa Maria Inn is opening up not only the Garden Room Restaurant, but the Kent Room, the Historical Room, the Coach Room, the Taproom, patios, and courtyards for seating.
Reservations are highly recommended for Mother’s Day brunch, but there will be room for walk-ins that Sunday.
“The No. 1 thing is we don’t want to turn anyone away,” Munoz said. “We’ve done a very good job … [of] not turning anyone away.”
Last year, the inn decided to do grand brunch buffets on holidays only, and Sunday brunches the rest of the year.
“But the one thing we would not even consider getting rid of is our holiday brunch buffets, or our grand buffets, because we’ve become so known for that,” Munoz said.
“It’s something that we can offer to Santa Maria [residents] that they don’t have to travel up north or down south to get; where they get it right outside their back door,” he said.
“It’s a beautiful environment, beautiful decorations, great selection of food, and I think for what you get it’s a very reasonable price,” Munoz summed up.
Adults pay $39, seniors pay $37, children ages 6 to 12 eat for $16, and children ages 5 and younger dine for free.
The Historic Santa Maria Inn’s Mother’s Day Champagne Brunch will be served on Sunday, May 12, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
For reservations, call the Garden Room Restaurant at 346-7908.
The Inn is at 801 S. Broadway in Santa Maria.
Sun food and wine columnist Wendy Thies Sell dedicates this story to her incredible mom. Send comments and story ideas to wthies@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 2-9, 2013.