No bull: Cadillac Ranch revs up the fun

Cadillac Ranch owner Chris Osborn. (Credit: Jeremiah Toller/Special for Metromix)

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When Cadillac Ranch opened at Tempe Marketplace, it seemed like an odd fit.

With the trendy, reality-TV-approved Saddle Ranch Chop House just up Scottsdale Road, another hip, countrified bar with a mechanical bull opening in the near East Valley struck me as one mechanical bull too many.

But, apparently, one cannot overestimate the pull of a faux bull that throws people.

Owner Chris Osborn, who's been working in Valley restaurants and bars for more than half his life, has turned the sprawling second-story bar into a destination for weekend dancing, super-cheap happy hours, University of Texas football games and, yes, mechanical bull-riding.

On weekends, the 750-person bar cycles through more than 900 guests a night, drawing crowds with performances from former-marquee names such as Darius Rucker (Hootie, of Hootie and the Blowfish), Puddle of Mudd and Alien Ant Farm, among others. Osborn also credits his Daisy Duke-style go-go girls as a major attraction.

But with a new fall menu of food items and cocktails, he's looking to turn the bar into the kind of place where guests can drink themselves silly one night, and come back for brunch, lunch or dinner the next day to shake it off.

Recently, I tried the bacon wontons, the pepper Jack lollipops, the Long Horn fingers (chicken tenders) and a variety of other dishes that took me on a gastronomic tour of deep-fried places I rarely go. In assembling his new dishes, Osborn proves to be a pragmatic man.

One can imagine him thinking: “People love bacon. They love cream cheese. Fry them in little packets, cover with a chile maple syrup sauce and bingo.”

And bingo, indeed. Everything I tried was on the heavy side of filling, and came out in portions befitting the start of a long night of drinking, but it was also tasty and pleasantly indulgent.

The updated cocktail menu functions in much the same way. Serve familiar drinks that can be cranked out at maximum speed for those four-deep-at-the-bar nights, add a lot of simple syrup and give them funny names so girls will enjoy ordering them, and bingo.

This is how one arrives at the neon-swirled frozen Tropic Thunder margarita, made with various Puckers, liqueurs, bottled mixes and tequila. The tangy, sweet and sour drink tastes of lime, coconut, pineapple and other vaguely tropical flavors. It's one of the bar's most popular margaritas, if that gives you a sense of the average age.

There's also the similarly saccharine, similarly over-the-top Chocolate Covered Cherry-Tini, made with black cherry vodka, Bailey's Irish Cream, cream and grenadine, served in a chocolate-drizzled glass. It's a rich, melted-ice-cream-sweet drink that appealed strongly to the part of me that used to order cocktails based on how little they actually tasted like the liquors from which they were made.

And country music fans will be pleased to hear of the Tim McGraw-inspired “Stars Go Blue” cocktail, which has a flavor profile reminiscent of an Otter Pop. The drink is a mix of raspberry rum, Island Punch Pucker and sweet and sour, served tall over ice and topped with Sprite.

Details: Daily happy hour from 4 to 7 p.m. and reverse happy hour from 10 p.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday with half-off appetizers, $2 to $3 beers, well drinks and frozen margaritas, $5 specialty cocktails.

At Tempe Marketplace, on the corner of the Loop 202 and McClintock Drive in Tempe, 480-894-1111, cadillacranchtempe.com.