The Santa Maria grill carries a name rooted in one of America's oldest and most distinctive barbecue traditions — a style born on the ranches of California's Central Coast and still beloved by live-fire cooks today.
Born on the ranch
The tradition traces back to the cattle ranches of the Santa Maria Valley in California, where ranch hands and their families gathered for communal meals cooked over open fire. The cooking was simple and direct: beef grilled over a bed of coals, seasoned plainly, and cooked with attention rather than gadgetry. It was food built around the gathering, not the other way around.
The adjustable grate
What set this style apart was the grate. Cooks needed a way to control the heat of a live fire without constantly rebuilding it, so they developed a grate that could be raised and lowered over the coals. Move food closer for a hard sear, lift it away to cook gently or hold it warm. That one piece of engineering turned an open fire into a controllable cooking instrument — and it remains the defining feature of the Santa Maria grill today.
From tradition to modern craft
The core idea has not changed, but the execution has advanced. Our Santa Maria grills take that proven concept and build it in 3/16" heavy-gauge steel, with a fire brick lining for heat retention, V-channel grates that direct grease away to reduce flare-ups, and a flywheel crank system that makes raising and lowering the grate smooth and precise. The soul of the tradition is intact; the materials and mechanics are built to last decades.
Why it endures
The Santa Maria style has outlasted countless cooking trends because it is honest. There is no shortcut and no gimmick — just fire, steel, good meat, and a cook paying attention. In an era of push-button convenience, that directness is exactly what draws people back to it. When you cook on a Santa Maria, you are taking part in a tradition that has gathered families and friends around the fire for generations.
That is the heritage we build into every grill that carries the name.
A customer’s Sunterra Santa Maria, pictured in 2017. A tradition that continues to evolve—explore today’s Santa Maria grills.
Photo courtesy of a Sunterra customer.