Restaurant Vet Takes Reins at La Tequila 

Earlier this spring, Raul Alarcon faced one of the bigger decisions of his life. Should he stay as an employee in the restaurant world, as he’d been doing for years as the bar manager at Toma Restaurant on the Santa Barbara waterfront? Or should he buy his own place? 

The Cuernavaca-born, Santa Barbara–raised, Santa Maria resident opted to be the boss, taking over as the owner of La Tequila in Buellton on April 1 of this year. 

“I had this gut feeling,” Alarcon told me at his spot just west of 101 on Highway 246. “At 46 years old, this was my chance.” 

He was familiar with Buellton due to the years he spent in between restaurant work as a special education teacher at Jonata Middle School, a career that also included teaching at Cabrillo High School. “Now, I have no choice,” he said of what his all-day, every-day restaurant life is like. “This is what I’m doing.” 

He didn’t make any major changes, but increased quality control by watching all of the dishes as they came out of the kitchen. He was lucky to inherit the longtime chef Patricia Diaz, who’d worked at the location since it was an El Sitio, which became La Tequila in 2018. “She’s the matriarch of the place,” said Alarcon. “She knows all the recipes.” 

That includes the orange salsa, which is just fiery enough thanks to the use of chile de árbol. “Whenever she is roasting it, we gotta open all the windows,” said Alarcon, noting that it won a Santa Ynez Valley salsa competition. There are three other options on most days as well. 

To eat, Alarcon started us out with the piña xcaret, almost like a deconstructed chorizo taco, layered in cheese and grilled pineapple, and served with tortillas. The savory, cheesy appetizer would work fine as a meal, but shares well when washed down with the wine-based margaritas.

For our main dish, Alarcon suggested the mole enchiladas. The dish was picture-perfect, if traditionally simple: a pyramid of rice, a cup of beans, and then the enchiladas, slaked in thick, dark chocolate-colored mole, topped with sesame seeds. Despite the no-flair appearance, the mole was assertively bold in flavor — Diaz’s rich, expertly balanced combination of multiple peppers, nuts, and seeds were roasted into a sweetly nutty sauce, causing me to crave for more in the days to come.

Dessert came in the form of crunchy churros, stacked like a pile of wood waiting to be lit. As we burned through it, Alarcon told us of moving from Cuernavaca to Santa Barbara in 1994. “I arrived on a Thursday evening,” he said. “On Monday, I was walking through the halls of Santa Barbara High School.”

He worked in restaurants back then, including the long-closed Johnny’s Rib Shack. “That’s when I realized cooking is not for me,” said Alarcon. He later worked as a server at the Miramar, learned bartending at El Encanto, then worked at the Santa Barbara Yacht Club and Emilio’s. He stayed on when it became Toma, working in education during the days. 

Now, La Tequila is his life. He plans to bring specials to the menu soon, like chile verde, pozole, ceviche, and crudo, and is continuing to settle into the new routine.

“It is not an easy profession, but I have come to enjoy owning and running a restaurant of my own,” said Alarcon. “I appreciate the good, the bad, and the stressful situations, but I am learning the challenges, which I do believe will make me stronger in the end.”

La Tequila, 35 W. Hwy. 246, Buellton; (805) 697-7776; @latequila_