Posted by Trish Bubenik, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Aug 27, 2006 at 8:54 pm

Does that mean that we could have retained that wonderful "mom and pop" establishment we loved as Caffe Verona??? Please come back!!

Trish Bubenik

Posted by J.L., a resident of the Ventura neighborhood, on Aug 27, 2006 at 9:33 pm

The then- landlord (Richard Gatley, of Gatley Properties) helped put a 19 year old community institution out of business because he wanted a "high end" restaurant in the space. Tell me another story.

Caffe Verona's disappearance was a direct result of one landlord's (Gatley's) greed and poor planning. Notice that Gatley sat on that property for TWO YEARS before selling out to Diosdado Banatao.

It's true that Banatao has been looking for the 'right' tenant since he bought the building late last year (he was going to build hhis VC firm's headquarters there, but plans changed).

I wish the new restauranteur well, but please let's not hear any more about taking Gatley off the hook for helping to destroy what had become a Palo Alto tradition.