Ranch BBQ Bar serves one-of-a-kind barbecue

Ranch BBQ Bar is located along Beach Road in San Antonio across the former UIC garment factory. (MARK RABAGO)

Ranch BBQ Bar is not your garden variety barbecue restaurant.

Opened just last November, the San Antonio restaurant serves Northeast China-style barbecue items which have unique tastes that you can’t find anywhere else on Saipan.

“As barbecue is one of the most favorite food items on Saipan, we’d like to introduce some exotic and unique barbecue, which originated from Northeast China. Our cook is really experienced, and there is a greater variety of barbecue items for customers to choose from compared to other restaurants,” said Na Li, who runs Ranch BBQ Bar with her husband, Owen, who is the cook.

So far, the best-selling items on its menu vary from customer to customer.

Ranch BBQ Bar prepares and grills high quality and fresh lamb, chicken, and beef barbecue everyday. (MARK RABAGO)

“For most Chinese and Koreans, they like our lamb, beef, scallop, and oyster barbecue. For Filipinos and locals, they like chicken, pork belly, pork intestine, gizzard, and squid barbecue. For young people, they really like to try something new, like grilled frog, chives, garlic, and bacon with mushrooms. For children, chicken wings and sausage skewers are their favorites,” she said.

Ranch BBQ Bar’s skewered meats are also one of a kind because of how they’re prepared and cooked.

“We have different ways to marinate and cook our barbecue, which makes it exotic and unique. Aside from that, our customers can dine outdoors with music and the fresh breeze while enjoying the beautiful night scene,” she said.

Ranch BBQ Bar offers exotic and unique barbecue that originates from Northeast China. (MARK RABAGO)

And it’s not just a barbecue place alone, as Ranch BBQ Bar also offers fried noodles and rice, dumplings, wonton, lumpia and shumai. It also serves beer, soju, and wine aside from soft drinks to justify the bar in its name.

Li, who is a pre-nursing student at Northern Marianas College, said they opened Ranch BBQ Bar despite the COVID-19 pandemic because life must go on.

“Even though the pandemic impacts our economy traumatically and it is very hard to run business under this situation, we should move forward to find opportunities. Three years have passed since the pandemic began.”

She said since many restaurants have either shut down or reduced their opening hours, they positioned Ranch BBQ Bar to fill the void.

“We found that some customers could not find any restaurants open after 10pm. So we made our business hours from 3:30pm to 2am. Hopefully, this would bring convenience to those people who work until the early morning.”

As to why it’s called Ranch BBQ Bar, Li said it refers to the freshness of the meat they serve.

“Going above and beyond to provide high quality and fresh lamb, chicken, and beef barbecue everyday is our goal. We guarantee that all the meat for barbecue is freshly prepared and marinated everyday. No old stock and we always keep the best and fresh tastes.”

Ranch BBQ Bar is located along Beach Road in San Antonio across the former UIC garment factory. It has seating for up to 10 dine-in customers in its private room and 14 customers at its patio setup outside.

For more information or to order, call (670) 783-6666 or (670) 783-4444

They also accept pick-up and drive-thru orders through WhatsApp. Ranch BBQ Bar is open Monday-Sunday from 3:30pm to 2am with the last order at 1:30am.