Pat & Oscar’s - Home of the Bread Stick

 

by Joe Lyons

 

There is a new level of dining that has come to the Inland Empire.

 

It is called convenience food. Somewhere between fast food and Denny’s style coffee shops, it lets you order and sit down, but there is a wait staff to attend to your needs. Several different chains that we have visited lately use this new format. The best, so far, has been Pat & Oscar’s.

 

P&O’s is not a pizza parlor, although they make great pizzas. They are not a bar-b-que, but their chicken and ribs and wings are as good as any real slow-cooked pit in the area.

 

The San Bernardino manager is actually prouder of the lemon chicken, which I have to admit is surprisingly juicy and, yes, lemony. The BBQ ribs and wings are equally as good.

 

They serve a great Caesar's salad and a good Greek salad and really good pasta with meat or marinara sauces. And they are extremely proud of their bread sticks. But they do not fit any profile you may have of any other such restaurant. The gourmet salads include spinach, cobb, antipasto, lemon chicken and chicken Caesar.

 

The menu is simplicity. You might, for example, want the pasta dishes. Each member of your party gets their own sauce, and the price includes the salad and the bread sticks. Again, each person gets the salad of their choice. Bread sticks are all-you-can-eat. In fact the menu is designed for one, two or four  persons.

 

There is some question as to the secret of the chicken and the ribs. Some members of the crew believe that the meats are slow cooked on site and just come out that good. Others tell us that the meat is half cooked before it arrives at the store and gets warmed up and slathered with sauce when it’s time to be served. Whatever it is, the results are amazing. Most BBQ joints compete, even fight, over whose is best. Pat & Oscar’s provides serious competition with almost no effort.

 

On top of which the chicken is also available on a remarkable BBQ chicken pizza. So are most of the other foods I have mentioned as either gourmet pizzas or pizzas created by you, or me.

 

Just added to the menu, and not yet reviewed by your humble and ravenous reporter, are a new line of soups. Several familiar styles in both cup and bowl servings are on the menu. They should go great with the pocket sandwiches.

 

And a new site has opened in San Bernardino. San Bernardino’s has a yellow paint scheme that provides some sense of intimacy to the atmosphere.

 

One other point to note is that the same ease of production provides dinners with brownies and cookies for dessert.

 

With tongue firmly implanted in cheek, Pat & Oscar’s has even declared a bread stick war on the Olive Garden. There is no word yet as to whether or not they intend to challenge anyone in the area of oven-baked potato wedges.

 

Pat & Oscar’s restaurants are located in the Inland Empire at: Rancho California Rd. in Temecula (951-695-2422) and 690 E. Hospitality Lane in San Bernardino (909-890-9815).

        

Check www.breadstick.com (honest!)