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Name Of Establishment	Ryan's Place
Address:	955 West Pacheco Blvd. Los Banos Ca.
Phone Number:	209-826-2616
Website:	Unknown
Prices:	Moderate
Date Of Review:	May 13, 2006
Check out the Official Merced County Health Inspection of this Restaurant - If that link isn't working try this link (note: these links are slow to load)
Our Overall Numeric Rating
Summation Opinion: A nice little diner with lots of locals. Appears to be a favorite for local seniors.

On May 13th, 2006 we ate at Ryan's Place in Los Banos located on Pacheco Blvd. near Sears and JC Penny's Ryan's is a diner type of establishment with a fair amount of choices and a nice, local, friendly atmosphere. In fact, I think we enjoyed listening to the locals catching up with each other almost more than eating our food!

Ryan's atmosphere has a typical diner-feel to it but with a more local flavor than say the Denny's down the street. Ryans Place has a large number of interesting and historical Los Banos pictures hung on the walls and there is a chair at the counter with a placard on it dedicating it to someone who must have been a regular there in times past.

When you enter Ryan's there is a small waiting area and a refrigerated glass area with lots of tempting looking pies tempting you. The colors are relaxing (deep greens, etc.). Unobtrusive music plays in the background and the booths are well kept and comfortable. Directly to the left of the entrance are the restrooms which we found clean and well maintained which can sometimes say a lot about a place and the care that goes into it.

We were given our menus and seated rapidly even though it was a somewhat busy afternoon. We took our time looking over the menus which has your typical diner fare with a few more interesting choices. I settled for the seafood platter and my husband the steak dinner.

The wait time for the food was pretty typical, no speed records, but not terribly slow either. I was served a side-salad that was decent; it had cucumbers, tomato and croutons. The dressing (Thousand Island) was good. I was also served garlic bread. It was "typical" diner garlic bread: good but nothing spectacular. All of our food was just that: good, but it was nothing spectacular. The fare pretty much reminded me of "Denny's" only with more choices and a little more flair (although not much more). The sodas were well mixed and carbonated. We enjoyed our meal and the portion sizes were large enough that we had leftovers at the end to take home. In fact, we were too full to try out some of those excellent looking pies at the front counter!

The charm of Ryans may not be the food, but it's specialness comes from the atmosphere. During our entire meal we watched a large number of locals (there seems to be a large senior population that enjoys Ryan's) greeting one another and chitchatting. This provided an air of comfortable friendliness. Everyone seemed to know everyone else (except thankfully your two anonymous reviewers) and there were a lot of animated and happy conversations going on. You don't have to be afraid to bring your kids here, the place isn't overly noisy, but it's not quiet and candle-filled either.

Ryan's turned out to be a pleasant overall experience. It isn't a fancy place but it is nice enough to take the folks from out of town to. It probably won't fit the bill for something special like an anniversary, but it will do in a pinch if you want good diner style food. We left Ryan's filled up and satisfied and will mostly likely be back another time to try out something else on the menu and next time will leave some room for dessert!

Specific Opinions By Reviewer One
Overall Rating :
Food:
Service:
Decor:	Liked the local feel and flavor
Price/Value:
Bathroom Cleanliness:
Romance Factor:
Family Friendliness:	Seems to be a place where seniors enjoy gong

Specific Opinions By Reviewer Two
Overall Rating :
Food:
Service:
Decor:	Liked the local and historical photographs
Price/Value:
Bathroom Cleanliness:
Romance Factor:
Family Friendliness:

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More About Our Los Banos Restaurant Reviews

In this section, the staff of Our Los Banos .com shares our personal opinions on the restaurants that we patronize in the City of Los Banos. We would like to stress that we are not professional reviewers, that we have had little or no training in the food arts, and that we are simply expressing our own personal views and opinions on particular visits that we made to the establishments under consideration.

Subjectivity. We make no pretense of the fact that we are not objective. As with art, food is a subjective experience subject to personal opinion and even whim. Some people love a particular artist's work while others can not stand what is put on canvas. Picasso comes to mind. Similarly people's appreciation for a particular chef's abilities are uniquely their own. While our tastes are very eclectic and we enjoy a tremendous variety of different types of food, we do not expect our readers will agree with all of our opinions and views. We DO encourage our readers to try each of the places that we have reviewed and then you can discuss (politely and in a positive fashion) your experiences and opinion of our review in the Los Banos Forum section.

Merced County Health Food Facility Inspections Site

Finally, we strongly encourage our readers to make use of a truly wonderful online resource we discovered last year. Merced County has put together a very cool Food Facility Inspection website which discloses the results of the County Health Department's last few inspections of each restaurant. The results are sometimes quite fascinating and are always interesting. Beware however you may not want to eat at certain places once you read some of the more dramatic entries. We at Our Los Banos .com very much appreciate and support the county of Merced putting these Department of Health food facility inspections online for the public to see.

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