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The hustle and bustle of the Hollister Downtown Association Farmers Market is a far cry from the Panoche homestead where Mitch Hammond grew up and where, in 1965, his father, Jerry, founded Hammond Ranch.
Today, as a successful beef producer who also oversees an on-property campground and Airbnb, Mitch fondly remembers growing up there.
“There was a lot of solitude,” he said, “but I was riding dirt bikes every day and playing with the horses and the cattle and the dogs. I had thousands of acres of backyard to goof around in, and I took full advantage of that.”
Jerry served in the Pacific Theater during WWII, built a successful insurance business in Menlo Park, and developed office buildings in Palo Alto before the lure of rural life became irresistible.
“He also had a horse ranch up on Skyline above Highway 92,” Mitch said, “and was a partner in a ranch in Gilroy. He sold all of it, quit his job, bought this ranch and moved the whole family out here. He always had a passion for horses and a farm country lifestyle.”
That lifestyle led Hammond to attend the one-room Panoche Elementary School under the instruction of longtime teacher John Light.
“There were eight kids in the whole school,” Hammond said, “kindergartners through 8th. John Light was my teacher for the whole nine years, and he got to know me. He pushed me to my limits and really helped raise me. It was more than just going to school; it was part of my life”.
After making the transition to Hollister High School and “learning how the big schools work,” and working for a while on the ranch with his father, Hammond eventually found himself in the Bay Area construction industry, a more satisfying career for the young man.
“You fix barbed wire and water lines and then move these cattle,” he said. “At the end of the day, I worked 12 hours, and I felt nothing was accomplished. In construction, you can look back and go, ‘Yeah, I just framed that house.’ It’s a lot more immediate gratification.”
After 40 years, Hammond returned to the ranch three and a half years ago with a primary goal of modernizing and diversifying the operation to ensure its survival for future generations.
“My son Matthew is really the most cowboy of the bunch,” he said. “He would very much like to go and continue on this ranch and hold on to it for generations. So, I’m in a very, very unique situation where my job now is to wake up in the morning and help to build that legacy.”
But in the current agricultural climate, Hammond said, that legacy is a hard one to sustain, particularly for an independent ranch.
“It seems to be an uphill battle,” he said, “between these corporate entities that are buying up the land to build these large mega-ranches. It used to be that about 85% of American beef came from ranches of 80 head of cattle or less. And that’s changing.”
Hammond Ranch consciously works to break that pattern, Hammond said, by finding its own niche in the market, focusing directly on what he calls a “happy cow” approach.
“With steak production,” he said, “corporations will buy calves in California and move them to summer grasses in Wyoming. Then back to feedlots in California. And every time you ship cattle, it’s more stress. More bumps and bruises. And if one gets sick, they all get sick.”
The cattle on Hammond’s ranch, he said, are born in the mountains, and they grow up and spend their lives there. Less stress? Better meat.
“They have one bad day at the branding,” Hammond said, “and then I feed them grain and hay every day for 90 days. It is like they are eating candy for the last 90 days of their lives. And I think that you can taste the difference between a happy cow and a not-so-happy cow.”
It is a belief that is expressed very simply in Hammond’s brochure: “We love ranching, and it shows on the plate.”
The ranch offers a wide variety of premium beef cuts, including classic steaks such as ribeye, filet mignon, and New York strip, as well as one of my favorites: tenderized cube steak, which is perfect for country-fried steak. They also carry roasting choices, including London broil, rump roast, and juicy picanha cap.
Using every part of the animal, he also offers liver, heart, kidney, beef cheeks, beef tongue and oxtail, along with marrow bones and beef knuckles for soup stock or as a reward for a hungry dog.
Hammond has also developed his own take on an ancestral ground beef blend, adding a percentage of heart and liver to the grind.
“You get supplements like iron, magnesium and phosphorus from that,” he said, “that you really can’t get in any other way. You can’t taste the difference between that regular hamburger, but you get the nutrition.”
Sourcing his beef from Paicines to a local market offers a few logistical issues, as might well be imagined. Meat can be ordered online for pickup at the ranch or can be purchased at the Farmers Market.
Hammond is currently working out the logistics for pickup spots in several locations, including Alameda and Paso Robles, and is considering direct delivery to customers in Hollister for a small fee on Wednesdays, before the market opens.
If taking the drive to Paicines to pick up an order seems to lack allure, there is the ranch itself to consider, with two one-bedrooms plus cabins listed on Airbnb, and a few campsites listed with Hip Camp. There is also a Class 5 rock-crawling creek bottom occasionally used by local adventurers.
Hammond is also planning an outdoor kitchen and a meeting area for hosting larger events, such as corporate team-building or cooking classes, all to broaden the ranch’s future viability in a changing agricultural economy.
“My parents’ ashes are up on the hill,” he said, “underneath the big beautiful oak tree. I hope to join them up there someday. Before then, I hope to make the ranch able to sustain itself and create the backbone of where this ranch is going to go.”
But at its heart, the ranch is still the business his father founded, and Hammond says he takes great pride in feeding his customers far and wide with a quality product.
“The ranch living is just unbelievable,” he said, “the beautiful sunsets and the good hard work that you put in every day. And there’s something to be said for being a steward of the land, caring for the property, for the livestock as well as wildlife.”
Cast Iron Skillet steaks, à la Hammond
Two Hammond Livestock trimmed boneless ribeye steaks (1-pound, 1-1/4″ inches thick)
Kosher salt and pepper
Two tablespoons vegetable oil
- Sprinkle the entire surface of each steak with one teaspoon salt.
- Let sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to one hour.
- Adjust the oven rack to the middle position.
- Place a 12-inch cast-iron skillet on the rack, and heat the oven.
- When the oven reaches 500 degrees, pat steaks dry with paper towels and season with pepper.
- Using potholders, remove the skillet from the oven and place it over medium-high heat.
- Turn off the oven.
- Being careful of the hot skillet handle, add oil and heat until just smoking.
- Cook the steaks without moving them until lightly browned on one side, about 90 seconds.
- Flip the steaks and cook until lightly browned on the second side, about 90 seconds.
- Flip the steaks; reduce heat to medium-low.
- Cook, flipping every 90 seconds, until steaks are well browned and the meat registers 120 to 125 degrees (for medium-rare), about six to seven minutes.
- Transfer steaks to a carving board, tent with aluminum foil, and let rest for five to 10 minutes.
- Slice steaks ½ inch thick and serve.
20720 Panoche Road, Paicines
510-867-7954
Hammond Ranch beef can be ordered online or picked up on Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. through Oct. 21 at the Hollister Downtown Association Farmers Market.
Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.
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