OK Corral, restaurant and full bar, with a cabin-mountain feel, they have smoked meats, homestyle cooking, wide menu selection, they will fill special requests for vegetarian, vegan, raw vegan, gluten free, peanut free, and they will work with your special diet while appreciating your business. For what they offer and their "upcountry location" they are an amazing value and very affordable for all things considered.
We live minutes from the OK Corral in Pioneer. We seriously forget about heading up the hill to eat and usually find ourselves driving 20 mins down the hill. We had worked all day on our house and were starving and tired. My husband asked if he could take me out on a date to OK Corral.
When we arrived people were in the bar and the restaurant seating area. It was around 8:45 pm and they were still serving dinner. We were so happy. We ordered the zucchini appetizer that was made with a beer batter and served with ranch dressing. I had to take all the crust off as I'm gluten intolerant. The zucchini was fresh and cooked perfectly. We both ordered salads with our dinners. The salads were a perfect size, fresh, with a variety of greens and veggies. For dinner we ordered the smoked chicken and the smoked ribs. Our meals came with baked potato and the fixings, green beans and warm bread. The meat was cooked perfectly, it was tender, with a deep smoky flavor. The potatoes were cleaned well, hot, cooked perfectly, and big. The green beans were fresh or frozen and cooked till tender they were to good to be canned.
Now, we sat there eating and filling up and both looked at each other with that crazy look on our faces asking, "Why don't we come here more?" The prices are outstanding for the quality of food. Our meals were $12-$14 including salad. In addition, our waitress was so sweet and really a hard worker. I could tell she was so happy to have our table to wait on. I know up country businesses struggle because they aren't in the large population areas. Still it was nice to walk into a restaurant late and have staff more than happy to serve us. What I find in most places I walk into late everyone looks at me like "Great, another customer so I guess we won't get out of here early". Well, this place was happy to see us!
In addition, I ordered a bloody marry for dinner. OK Corral makes their own mix. As a result of their extra efforts my drink was perfectly spiced with a rich tomato flavor. They didn't have Absolute Citron but they did have a well vodka that was very smooth.
My only complaint about our meal was they were out of the clam chowder when we arrived. However, it was late, around 9 pm and that is normal for most busy restaurants.
After our meal was finished the owner sat with us and hung out. We ended up moving from our dinner table to the bar. Our planned one hour dinner ended up going until midnight. So, our lights, stereo, and pets were roaming our home when our daughter got home. We are never out late so she called ER, CHP, and everyone looking for us. When we called home at midnight for a designated driver she was so irritated with us for not leaving a note. Well, we had no idea we were going to connect with the owner and make a night of it.
Guess what I learned from the owner? Well, he has many businesses but OK Corral is his baby. He loves the place and he really wants to make it a pit stop for locals and all the vacationers that pass through. He said when he left it to his staff in the summer because he was working at another one of his businesses he felt that things suffered a bit. So, he plans on being at OK Corral full time and working in the kitchen with his personal recipes.
With that in mind, if you did go to OK Corral this summer and like the 1-star reviewer had a bad experience I would go again and tell the owner. I know he would make it right and it's probably because he wasn't there. He really cares about people having a good quality meal, he will work around allergies, he will make you a vegan meal, he will personalize your meal for your health and diet.
Please know that it is really important for Up County, Pioneer area to have OK Corral, a quality restaurant and full bar that is affordable and serves food late. Our pizza parlors don't have a full bar and don't have the selection of dinners that are gluten-free like OK Corral (plus our wheat allergies have stopped us from going to pizza parlors).
UPDATE: I updated my review to reflect our experience over time. This is definitely not a five star business but the owner tries so hard. It can be hit or miss but he has reopened after closing when we've shown up. They can run out of things but they always do their best to accommodate us. We may have had some under smoked meat once but the owner addressed it, apologized, and gave us a credit and another meal for free. Hopefully they continue to improve and be an awesome pit stop up the mountain. read more