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.”…