In 1975, 22-year-old Sergio Avila, born in Guanajuato, Mexico, traded scales for salsa, transforming a Newport Peninsula fish market into Avila’s El Ranchito, the first location of his parents’ namesake Cali-Mexican eatery that got its start in Huntington Park. Fifty years later, the restaurant’s longevity stands as a testament to its enduring taste, not trends, with more than a dozen locations to follow, including Corona del Mar, Huntington Beach, Orange, Santa Ana and more.
Opening with a capacity for 40 guests and a staff of 8, Avila’s El Ranchito gained traction with diners over the years for care of Sergio’s mothers’ recipes and affordable price points. (Margarita and Salvador Avila, his parents, who founded the restaurant in 1966, died in 2019 and 2022, respectively.) While the Cannery Village neighborhood had been known as a tony area years prior to Sergio opening the restaurant, it wasn’t the hotbed of culinary names it is today, with such notable places like Nobu, Lido Village’s the Mayor’s Table and Sessions West Coast Deli making waves.
El Ranchito’s Newport Peninsula space underwent a remodel in 1997, moving the dining room to face Newport Boulevard and shifting the kitchen to the back. Another remodel was completed in 2018 to open up the outdoor patio. With its cosmetic changes, the restaurant has seen the area change over the years, with the addition of new faces and culinary concepts.
But at its heart, Avila’s has remained a family affair: Three generations of the Avila family individually own and operate 12 locations, the bulk of which, save for the original Huntington Park space (which opened in 1966), are found in Orange County. Maribel Avila Ley, co-owner and operator of the Corona del Mar and Newport Beach eateries, started working alongside her father after she graduated from the University of Colorado in 2010.
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“For my entire childhood, the Newport Peninsula location is where I would run around,” said Maribel Avila Ley, co-owner and operator of Avila’s El Ranchito Newport Beach. “It’s where I would go after school. I knew all the employees. That’s where I would hang out.”
When asked about her favorite memory, a now-defunct Cinco De Mayo staple stands out the most. “For every Cinco De Mayo — this is crazy, I can’t believe we used to be able to do this — my dad would rent a live burro, which you obviously cannot do these days, and he would have it out in a tent for photo ops.” Kids would be able to hop on the donkey for photo shoots. “And we would press the photos onto a pin as a keepsake, with the pin saying something like, ‘I survived Cinco de Mayo, 1991.’” Indeed, she admits, the 1980s were a wild time insofar as what people were allowed to do.
Maribel initially had no plans to work in the business in which she grew up. “I actually didn’t want to work in the family business, because I didn’t want to be treated like the owner’s daughter,” she said. “So, my first job was at Jack’s Surfboards.”
After college, she decided to start working in the family business in 2010, taking over managerial roles and later operations.
During its 1990s era, the advent of “Taco Tuesday,” wherein many Mexican restaurants offered taco and drink deals, helped cement El Ranchito’s reputation as a lively spot for maximum merriment. “We put Taco Tuesday on the map in Newport,” she said. “People would drive down from L.A. to come to Taco Tuesday at our restaurant. It was so fun.”
The restaurant’s Taco Tuesday lasted from the mid-1990s until 2015. “We saw a lot more families coming in,” she said. “The area stopped being the party scene it used to be.” Maribel also noted the cost of goods going up as another reason to nix Taco Tuesday in lieu of raising prices. “We didn’t want to make it an $8 all-you-can-eat Taco Tuesday, she said. “And we can’t bump it up to $10.”
Bringing back the taco tradition for a limited time, Avila’s El Ranchito will revive its $5 all-you-can-eat Taco Tuesday bacchanalia on Tuesday, April 22 and Tuesday, April 29 from 5 p.m. until closing.
And starting Tuesday, April 1 until Wednesday, April 30, parched guests 21 and older can get their hands on Avila’s Miracle Margarita (a zippy concoction of Celeya blanco, muddled raspberries, lime juice and agave), with $2 for every margarita sold getting donated to Miracle for Kids, a nonprofit serving children with life-threatening illnesses. Celeya will match each donation for a total of $4 per margarita sold.
Today, El Ranchito remains a standout example of Orange County dining, with several successful locations throughout O.C. Despite its Huntington Beach closure in 2024, due, in part, to a kitchen fire, the Avila family restaurant business remains the same great place for Mexican dishes at affordable prices — a feat in a time and place where costs continue to skyrocket.
“We have to adapt with everything being so expensive right now and everyone just feeling the cost of everything going up,” she said. “We try hard not to raise our prices, because we want to be the place that you can go to three times a week or once a week, have your birthday party here, make it your regular place.”
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El Ranchito still includes regular daily specials for each day of the week (e.g., two crispy tacos for $6 on Tuesday) and lunch-combo specials during weekdays. Mama Avila’s soup, featuring big chunks of chicken breast and rice, garnished with avocado, tomato, cilantro and lime, which comes with warm tortillas, costs $14. Fajitas, normally $27 on the regular menu, are $22 on Wednesdays (psst, no corkage fee on hump day, too) “We have great once-a-week specials that I always mention to people who are dining on a budget,” she said.
Avila’s El Ranchito endures. Its longevity, in a sea of here-today, gone-tomorrow concepts, highlights the winning combination of a flexible yet tasty menu, lively atmosphere, accessible pricing and multigenerational family dedication. Bonus: You might see Sergio, an avid surfer, cycling into work after catching waves.