Everyone enjoys eating out at Santa Barbara’s amazing array of eateries. Today we are so fortunate to have more choices for casual or exquisite fine dining experiences.
I worked at Olive Mill Bistro in the late 1970s and was maitre’d of Ristorante Piatti during its first five years in Montecito. I have always loved Santa Barbara restaurants, so I took it upon myself to research their history at the Santa Barbara Public Library many years ago. From that, I developed this list of the public places folks could grab a bite in the Santa Barbara area from the early days in the late 19th century through the mid-1980s.
The handwritten list was done years before computers, and I dug it out of my files and typed it up so share with a few friends. Chef James Sly loved it so much it the he posted it on a Wiki site for several years until it expired.