SAN YSIDRO RANCH

Had a most wonderful tea party with 14 lady friends at SYR today! We were in the Veranda Room which was very quaint and cozy! Everything was great from start to finish: excellent tea, delicious food, and flawless service! Well done SYR team! ????????

Breathtaking scenery and well maintained gardens and property.
Wonderful and unforgettable experience. The food is excellent and the staff are very kind and courteous. They paid extraordinary attention to our food allergies and other requests. Truly remarkable and exceptional service. Commendation to the whole team.

Had lunch with a bunch of friends at Stonehouse restaurant and felt compelled to give our server Richard a raving review. He was so sweet and attentive. He truly wanted us to enjoy our experience and he enhanced it. I hope whoever visits the Stonehouse has the pleasure of dining with him.

Update: I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from Andrew who is in charge of food and drinks at the ranch regarding this review. Thumbs up to the management for the extra mile! I will definitely try the afternoon tea service again next winter and have full confidence that it will be perfect by then. Adding one star to the service rating to reflect the management's effort.

Original review: We spend about a month in Santa Barbara almost every winter since we discovered the gorgeous little slice of paradise, and would always visit the ranch for lunch/brunch during our stay in town. The ground is flawlessly beautiful, food is adequate, drinks are great. Service is a bit inconsistent, sometimes perfect sometimes not so much, but in general we were always happy with our experience. (Once they cut a banana with peels and sticker on to make bananas foster....Fortunately I caught that. The manager came to apologize and comped it so all was well.)

Not so this time. They just started offering an afternoon tea service in the garden this season. This is a great idea, but executed poorly. We went twice. Both times there was no one at the host desk at Stonehouse. We had to wait and hunt down someone to take us to our table. Since the seatings are in the garden, service staff becomes very important. First time we sat by the roses and had a well-trained waitress. It was cloudy and damp, but we had the entire garden to ourselves, our waitress anticipated all our needs, the tea and sandwiches and pastries were okay, we were very happy. We tipped extra to show our appreciation.

We went again yesterday (Monday 1/29/2024) on a gorgeous sunny day. Unfortunately this time our waiter was woefully under-trained. Everything was super slow. We sat and waited at least 35 minutes for anything to arrive, without even water. The umbrella was not properly set to provide shade for our table. So we asked to be moved to the table on the patio (701) which was fortunately just vacated. This also took forever. The sandwiches were awful this time, leftovers from Sunday I think. Now this just shouldn't happen for a place like this.

Service staff was walking around us all the time. That is very damaging as the best thing about this place is the feel of peace and tranquility. You could say this is the problem with this particular table, but again it could be avoided had the operation been properly run.

After the tea we asked for the drinks menu. The waiter came back with one menu for the two of us, and waited with a pad and pen in hand right in front of us while the table remained uncleared. I actually had to ask him to return a couple of minutes later so we could look at the menu in ease. Well, he left, but then did not come back for at least 20 minutes! Of course we only wanted the check at that point.

We like the ranch's beautiful ground and setting so probably will return for lunch/brunch. Afternoon tea though I do not recommend. The fact is service is simply neglected at this time of the day. Many wait staff are hanging around, intruding on the guests' privacy yet no attentive service is provided. What a pity.

Additional note: We do find El Encanto provides consistently better service.

My wife and I recently spent a few weeks in Montecito and splurged on a long weekend at San Ysidro. The amenities far exceed any Four Seasons sojourn. Exquisite, luxurious and well worth the price point. 100 Stars.