New to the Hood: Marcus & Katie Avila Open El Ranchito

At this point, most of you know that the Avila’s have come to OTO with their family-owned restaurant El Ranchito. I happened to be getting back from a Hawaiian vacation the day before they opened, so the next morning, with no food in the house, the family and I decided to pay them a visit for lunch. Of course, the universe played a little game on all of us that day and half the power was out in downtown Orange, including at El Ranchito. They were making it work though and still serving up their traditional recipes and margaritas! While this is pretty terrible for opening day, it made for a good memory and we had a great experience that day as well as the chance to meet owner Marcus Avila. We have been back many times since and it seems that each time, they’ve made another small change to what used to be PJs Abbey.

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