Few places in Guadalupe are more deliciously historic than the Far Western Tavern. For five decades, the restaurant has served up its signature steaks and award-winning cowboy fare to tourists trekking down Highway 1 and locals making the drive just for a taste of Santa Maria-style barbecue.
Those days will soon be living only in memories, as the greater Minetti family, the Far Western’s owner for three generations, plans to relocate the restaurant to Old Town Orcutt by year’s end.
Clarence and Rosalie Minetti established the restaurant in 1958 along with Richard Maretti and his wife Jean. Today, the Minettis’ granddaughter, Renee Righetti-Fowler, is a Far Western board member and serves as the family spokesperson.
“We’re so excited about it,” she said of the move. “It was a very tough decision for our family to make, after being in the same building for 52 years. The new location is a little more centrally located to a larger population of people; it’s closer to Highway 101 and closer to wine country.”
Besides location, Righetti-Fowler said, a major impetus for the move came as a result of state-mandated retrofitting of unreinforced masonry buildings. The current restaurant occupies Guadalupe’s Palace Hotel, built in 1912 and required to be earthquake-proof by 2014.
The family unanimously decided to relocate, Righetti-Fowler said, to preserve the restaurant’s legacy.
“We’ve seen a steady decline in weekday group sales,” she said. “In order to keep the business viable for the future generations, we just started looking at all of our options and decided that a move was warranted.”
Once the decision was made, the family met with Guadalupe city officials in November to tell them of their plans, and offered their help in finding a solution for the old building. The news came as a disappointment to Guadalupe Mayor Lupe Alvarez.
“Guadalupe is known for many of its great restaurants, and of course the Far Western is one of them,” Alvarez said. “It’s going to leave a void, and we’re sorry to see them go.”
Named by Sunset Magazine as one of the West’s Top 10 barbecue restaurants, the Far Western gained a loyal following from far and wide. Though Alvarez said he appreciates the relocation as a business decision, he’s concerned the town will lose out on revenue generated by the famous eatery in gas, sales tax, and tourism dollars.
“[The impact] is going to be felt,” Alvarez said. “Many people came out here just for a great steak dinner, and there’s always a residual benefit from that.
“It’s going to be a loss, but obviously we will move on and go from there,” he added. “There’s not much that can be done.”
According to Alvarez, the city offered the Minetti family more than $100,000 through its Unreinforced Masonry Building program, used to help business owners defer the costs of retrofits.
While Righetti-Fowler didn’t know how much the retrofitting would cost, she said the money the city made available was nowhere near the price tag for the project.
The Minetti family owns the Palace Hotel, and will still need to complete the retrofits before the city’s Chamber of Commerce can court new tenants, Alvarez said.
Guadalupe City Administrator Regan Candelario said the chamber would have to take its cues from the family before
figuring out how to proceed.
“We obviously view it as a development opportunity for reuse and potential new tenants, maybe a whole new thing altogether—you never know,” Candelario said. “It’s their building, so I don’t really have a plan for them at this point.”
Guadalupe’s loss is Orcutt’s gain; the Minetti family is currently in the final stages of the permitting process for its new building and hopes to break ground on construction by March. The current location will remain open until just a couple of weeks prior to the move. When the Far Western does finally open at 300 Clark Ave., regulars shouldn’t worry too much about the eatery losing its old charm.
The Minetti family’s goal is to capture the ambience of the original site at the new location. Much of the old décor will be transplanted from the old building, and the menu will see few—if any—changes, Righetti-Fowler said. As with the current restaurant, the building will have an upstairs banquet room and separate downstairs bar and dining areas.
Looking forward to the move with a “heavy heart,” Righetti-Fowler said the Minetti family would pack away a lot of memories from the Palace Hotel.
“Guadalupe is bigger than just one restaurant leaving,” she said. “We’re very thankful for all the support we’ve gotten from the community over the years.”
Contact Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 3-10, 2011.