Perhaps the biggest compliment that a locally owned, freeway-side restaurant could wish to receive came from a trio of frequent patrons on a recent Wednesday morning: “It’s an oasis in the middle of a sea of nondescript chains.”
These words are from Art Sotomayor, who, along with longtime friends Andrew Peckham and Rick Rodriguez, stopped off recently at Willow Ranch in Buttonwillow. The restaurant, just a few miles north of Bakersfield, is a popular spot for the trio to fill up during their travels. Their destination this time? The Duel at Mojave, a three-day dirt track race in Bullhead City, Arizona.
The three men grew up wrenching and racing cars together on the Central Coast. Peckham, now living in Grass Valley, is the driver in the group; the other two represent the pit crew. The team of three said their travels — trailering their car to various dirt track races in the West — often lead them to Willow Ranch, a somewhat hidden, especially from those who don’t traverse this freeway often, Interstate 5 stop.
Even on a non-holiday midweek morning, Willow Ranch had an expectant hum to it. The groups that came in were in various forms of workwear: road crews, oil field workers, farmers and truckers. As 1970s soul standards trickled out from the speakers overhead, quiet murmurs of conversation filled the golden-brown Naugahyde booths that line the western side of the building. There, a surprising amount of natural light spilled in from the still-rising valley sun…