New Pismo Beach restaurant brings ‘gourmet’ corn dogs to South County
When retired police officer Ray Holguin was presented with an opportunity to get into the restaurant business last year, he saw a chance to bring something unique to Pismo Beach.
The owners of Slim Dilly Dogs had decided to sell their business, and Holguin asked his son-in-law, Alex Gonzalez, to join him in a business venture as a chef.
After a few months of planning, Holguin and Gonzalez decided to purchase the property and then launched Pismo Bites, which specializes in burritos, hot dogs, corn dogs and fresh beverages.
Now, after launching Feb. 1 and with the restaurant in a soft opening phase, Holguin said Pismo Bites is preparing for the busy summer season.
“For me, this is just the second phase of my life,” Holguin said. “I have always been a public servant, and I look at food as a public servant. I’m serving the people.”
‘Secret menu’ stems from customer feedback
Holguin said the work to develop Pismo Bites’ menu was a months-long process of gathering feedback from the restaurant’s neighbors and passersby during the building’s renovations.
Though tourist traffic has been light during the cold season in Pismo Beach, Holguin said, the feedback from local customers has helped shape the menu.
Initially, Pismo Bites was planned as a pizza-by-the-slice restaurant, Holguin said, but when he and Gonzalez “did (their) due diligence,” they realized they would need to create a more unique menu to stand out amid Pismo Beach’s restaurant scene.
To get more feedback, Holguin said he would sit outside his restaurant during its renovations and ask pedestrians what they would like to see.
To his surprise, Holguin said, the most requested food was corn dogs — more specifically, fresh non-frozen corn dogs.
“We started doing a lot more research, and we’re like, ‘Let’s not just make corn dogs, let’s make our own creation of corn dogs,’” Holguin said. “Ours are pretty gourmet.”
These gourmet corn dogs start with homemade batter, sauces and ingredients, Holguin said, and come in several different specialty styles: plain, nacho cheese, hot link, street elote (corn) and diablo dog, which is made with a black batter, panko bread crumbs, crema and Pismo sauce.
Pismo Bites also serves hot dogs, including the Pismo dog with grilled onions and jalapenos; the street elote dog with corn, crema, cotija cheese, cilantro and a special seasoning; and the deep-fried “ugly naked dog” on a stick served with a sweet Hawaiian roll.
And Holguin offers a variety of homemade lemonades, which come in a wide range of flavors and can be caffeinated.
In addition, the restaurant features breakfast burritos in ham, bacon and non-meat varieties that come “wrapped in a cheese blanket.”
When the restaurant was in development, “breakfast was not even on the table,” Holguin said. “We realized the RV parks over here allow people walking into town to get coffee and breakfast burritos. I said, ‘I feel like we can give them a run for their money for that.’”
As the menu grew and more options were added, Holguin said he and Gonzalez began testing new ideas with the public by featuring them on the Pismo Bites Instagram — which Holguin’s daughter runs for the business — creating a sort of “secret menu” of experimental foods.
For example, the menu’s tostada burrito underwent several changes based on customer feedback after it was featured on Instagram.
Summer to bring expanded staff, hours
Pismo Bites is now open Wednesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Holguin said, but will seek to expand its hours soon.
“The (full opening) date is going to be soft, because we’ll kind of go with the weather,” Holguin said. “If the restaurant is starting to open up, then we’ll expand our hours, and then we’ll expand our days to at least six days a week.”
Between working at the front counter and in the kitchen, Holguin can get streteched thin.
Once he expands the hours, he said he’ll look to add another staff member to work the register and serve customers.
Holguin said as a first-time restaurant owner, there was no shortage of hurdles to overcome in the months leading to the opening — most of all, a historic winter storm that flooded much of San Luis Obispo County, plus the cost impacts from high inflation.
Finding the right prices amid rising costs for ingredients like eggs also proved to be an early challenge, Holguin said.
All of the menu’s corn dogs fall between $7 and $9.50, hot dogs cost no more than $8 and beverages cost $6.50 or less.
Keeping those prices low is necessary for a newly started business, Holguin said.
“The positive side is we’re in a bad inflation — we all know that,” Holguin said. “If we can get through this, we’re going to be great, right? It’s gonna pop.”
Holguin said building strong relationships with his customers will keep his business strong as it heads to full opening.
“Alex and I have to bring the personality where people feel comfortable coming here,” Holguin said. “The food is just an ingredient, a part of the whole totality of we want. We want hospitality, we’re servants to the people and we want people to come in here and say, ‘I’m comfortable, I feel good.’”
This story was originally published February 12, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
