Rancho Nipomo Deli & BBQ

I had stopped by here on a previous trip before, and it was not open. So this time passing thru the area I stopped by Rancho Nipomo Deli & BBQ to try it out. I ordered a Vaquero Chicken Taco, & a Tri-​Tip Sandwich. The Vaquero Chicken Taco was great with their salsa topped on it. The Tri-​Tip Sandwich was bigger than I thought it would be. The Tri-​Tip Sandwich was the best Tri-​Tip Sandwich I have had. With their BBQ Sauce on it it was awesome!
I will definitely be bringing my wife here the next time we are in the area. It is great for lunch :)

Good food, good prices, and good music, what more could you ask for…

Excellent music
Wonder staff
A venue I strongly encourage you to come
Richard is so caring and hospitable
Lou
HAPPY AT HOME.
805 249 8818
Come visit
You’ll be jolly
And satisfied

I have eaten here several times, both by myself and with clients. The food is excellent, the service great, and the pricing competitive. If you want great BBQ, this is one of the best places in Santa Maria. You can’t go wrong ordering a meal here. Keep up the great work guys and gals!

Tried the super nachos with Carne asada and the fish taco and was unimpressed. Both were decent tasting but not anything I would want again. The pricing for nachos and two fish tacos was $ 30.00 — for the price i will go elsewhere.

Not sure what everyone is talking about. Tritip was dry and chewy. Super disappointing. Sandwiches came with zero BBQ sauce. What pulled pork and tri tip sandwich comes with no BBQ sauce??? Dry, tasteless, disgusting. Would have had a better meal getting food poisoning at Arby’s.

Tried their famous Santa Maria Fries, they were good but not great.
We also had a tri tip burrito, it was simple with just beans, rice, and meat but definitely lacking in flavor.
They really need more seating here.

So APPARENTLY there is a secret menu, kind of. We discovered today not all items fit on the chalkboard… you just have to know to ask… or read the entire printed menu. Secret item of the day: Cali Philly Cheesesteak Sandwhich made with tri tip ends… shut the front door. Best sandwhich ever! #SecretMenu
Also, patio is dog friendly! Love this place!

I am a semi regular and the food is great! I love hearing artist play there too!

We came here for the tri tip Santa Maria fries and they were worth the trip. It could easily feed 3 people. Be prepared. I also had the tri tip sandwich which was also great. The third time we visited we had the nachos with the tri tip but we both felt a little underwhelmed. Guacamole, pico de gallo, and sour cream should be added. It was still good though. Also ordered the tres leches cake but thought it was lacking that milky flavor I was looking forward to. Otherwise, there is enough room for people to enjoy their meal. The service is fast. They have a little area with different salsas to add to your meal. It is divided into two sections, a bar and a section for those traveling with kids. There is a lot of parking and the location is easily accessed off the 101

Richard the owner has such a great place! Every time I go the food is amazing and I am never let down. Also he has helped the community with donations. A great place and owner!

I love this little spot… They have good food, friendly service, and live music many nights of the week. They will make sure you are happy and the owner is on site most of the time. I am not a food critic by any means but I enjoy the pulled pork sandwiches and the trip tip nachos.

Food is great! I got the pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw on side. It had the right amount of bbq sauce with the sweet and tangy. The fluffy, buttery bread encased the meat and absorbed the meat juices. Oh weee. The portion size was huge. I saved half of it as I continued back up the 101 to San Jose, CA.
My friend ordered the full slab of ribs, pastrami sandwich, and beer battered fries. Let me tell you the fries were suprisingly good. I didn’t know fries can get this good! It was golden crispy on the outside with no sense of greasyness and fluffy inside.
I’m glad my friends introduced this to me. One minor issue for me was dimmed lights in main section of the restaurant. Can’t take good pics to do the food justice. The other section is like a bar area. I like how the restaurant is situated humbly in a low key area. I will definitely be coming back to try their baby back ribs.
Must Try:
Pulled pork sandwich
Beer battered fries
EDIT: grammar

The wife and I both had the tri tip sandwiches and were vary good. Tri tip tasted like Santa Maria style (red oak) we also had the fries and onion rings both were vary tasty. The service was also great everyone was friendly and helpful looking forward to coming back and trying more food.

I am glad that I found Rancho Nipomo Deli & BBQ on Unilocal.On my trip to Santa Maria, I had to sample some local tri tip. This combination bar and restaurant specializes in Mexican & Santa Maria style BBQ with some interesting combinations. They are located north of Santa Maria in Nipomo, just off Highway 101.
The restaurant side is on the right as you approach the building. You can enter the bar side, but the food orders are placed in the restaurant side. My first inclination was to sample the Santa Maria Fries as shown on the many reviews, but I opted for the Tri Tip Sandwich with fries instead. The bread is excellent and pairs well with the meat and sweet barbecue sauce. The meat is cooked well and was delicious, but lacked a unique flavor. The fries were perfect with a seasoned batter coating.
Rancho Nipomo has many other options besides Tri Tip including some authentic Mexican entrées, but they are still good with the tri tip — especially on that great bread. I ate in the much larger bar section which was pretty dark, but more roomy than the restaurant side. They are a good stop on your Santa Maria trip.

People must be hypnotized by the BBQ. We were looking for a deli in Nipomo and this one received such good reviews that we headed for it. Their sign that includes the word «deli» is faded and they didn’t bother to repaint, so when I told my husband to look for «deli» we first drove right by the restaurant on their short section of street.
The table was sticky. The chairs and furnishings were old, worn, and in some cases defaced. I sat facing a cracked window. (Seriously, they can’t fix their window?) Most of the windows were wide open on a cool day so the temperature was uncomfortable inside the restaurant. We ordered vegetarian burritos and they arrived barely lukewarm. They fell apart onto our plates, and they barely had any flavor. My husband kept getting up to go to the salsa bar for something that would give his food flavor. We spent almost thirty dollars on these two burritos and a cheese quesadilla and glass of milk for our preschooler and it was EXTREMELY disappointing to have such a bad experience.

Inhaled the BBQ pulled pork sandwich. It had a very smoky flavor, which is fine if you’re into that (a tad too smoky for me). I can only compare it to BBQ from the southeast and Missouri, however you identify that state, because Los Angeles has horrible BBQ. The sauce here is molasses based, so don’t think you’re going to get a Carolina style sauce. Anyway, great food (superb if you’ve never had BBQ south of the Mason-​Dixon Line) and extremely amiable staff. I’m giving it 4 stars because I don’t know how it compares to other BBQ places in the area/​region. Definitely worth a visit.

«Try tri-​tip from Santa Maria» has been sitting unchecked on my bucket list for some time. So, on a recent vacation down to Lake Nacimiento, I loaded the family up and headed south for a road trip to knock this one out. As we got closer, I leaned on Unilocal to provide me the destination and this is what came up. I wasn’t totally sold as it isn’t actually in Santa Maria and, when I saw the menu was heavy on the Mexican side, I was a bit deflated. With 2 kids and an impatient wife though, I sucked it up and went ahead and ordered. Tri-​tip sandwich for me and the wife, ribs for my boy, and quesadilla for the girl. And it was all the bombdiggity. I am not sure this was «Santa Maria» tri-​tip, but it was darned good. And the bread they served it on was insane. The ribs were even better, or as my 9 yr old commented, «amaaaaazing». We really only should have ordered 1 tri-​tip sandwich and the ribs as there was enough food to feed a family of 10 with all the fixins that came with it. I eyeballed one of the burritos someone was eating at a table next to us… it was equally as huge.
And, now, here is my problem. Technically, I can not check off my bucket list as this place is in Nipomo. And I will have to drive past this place to actually get to Santa Maria to try the tri-​tip there. Not sure I will make it.

I’ve been living in Nipomo for over 6 months and had never been here. I brought my fiancé and her grandparents for dinner tonight, not knowing what to expect. I was blown away! The food was superb, s rice was friendly, their establishment was clean, and the prices were below what I’d expect! Five stars!
Ryan helped us, very friendly and made us feel welcome.
Thanks for the Chile verde burrito! I loved it!

I was in town for work and wanted to grab a quick dinner. I got to the restaurant at a big dinner rush around 7. There was a pretty hefty line to order so I figured the food must be worth the wait so I got in line (BIG mistake). They take your order and give you a number whether you are dining in or taking out. I had to wait a painstaking 45 minutes to get my food. What makes it even more uncomfortable is that there wasn’t a good place to stand or sit to wait for the food to come out.
Okay, so onto the food. So I ordered a Baja street-​style hot dog and a tri-​tip sandwich. The hot dog was pretty much an ordinary hot dog wrapped in bacon with a couple grilled onions and a squirt of mustard. The meat in the tri-​tip was too thick and I had to rip the meat barbarically to get a bite. The au jous was too salty there was no depth of flavor beyond just salt! The only thing it had going for it was the generous portions.
If you are going to try ordering take out, I would call in advance so you don’t have to wait so long when you get there. But frankly, I don’t think it is worth the price or time to check this out.