Cold Spring Tavern

Cold Spring Tavern is a 1860s stagecoach stop tucked under oak trees on a back lane just off Highway 154, twenty minutes' drive from Santa Barbara. The kitchen does fire-grilled tri-tip sandwiches at lunch and a more serious dinner menu featuring rabbit chilli, venison, and roast quail in the evenings.

Sunday lunch is the famous time: bikers from the Santa Ynez Valley fill the parking lot, a live band plays under the trees, and the tri-tip is grilled outside on an oak fire. Cash and cards. The dirt road in and the lack of a sign means many people miss it; that is part of the charm.

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A story
Cold Spring Tavern was a stagecoach stop on the San Marcos Pass road in 1868. The road still runs past it — Highway 154 — but the tavern looks exactly the way it did when the horses stopped here, with low timber walls, oil lamps, and a giant stone fireplace. It is the closest thing California has to an unbroken stagecoach inn.

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