Tasting time

Not twenty years after American Col. John C. Fremont moved across the San Marcos Pass to accept Mexican General Pico's surrender of California, ending the Mexican American War. The trail he used became a stage route between Santa Barbara and Rancho San Marcos in the Santa Ynez Valley. Very near the crest of the Pass a small building was erected by Chinese laborers and the Cold Spring Tavern was born. Today it is a rustic restaurant offering fare not far removed from its first days as a stagecoach stop, the smell of beef cooked over an open flame wafts through the towering trees and weary travelers find comfort and camaraderie as their spirits and bellies are filled.

Even though the the modern (and gracefully engineered) Highway 154 has bypassed the treacherous Stagecoach Road where the ancient tavern is located, still the place is crowded and parking isn't easy to come by without extensive use of one's own legs. The inside is dark and our table was lit by an oil lamp, exposing hunting trophies and paraphernalia of bygone eras mounted on the walls. The tiny rooms with creaking wooden floors and leaded window panes opening to the mountain laurel might just as well have been a scene from 120 years ago as today.

There are few places in Southern California in which a sense of history is palpable, the California missions, some of the old adobe homes and early forts. But here, like nowhere else I can think of, do we have the experience as it must have been for those who stopped to rest and be refreshed before continuing their journey, as we ourselves did in the same place but in another time.

Cold Spring Tavern can be found in my Buildings, Doors and Windows Gallery.

Click Here for More Information