April 27, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

ShopTalk: Wolfgang Puck's Passover news: a second Palo Alto restaurant

by Daryl Savage

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck revealed Sunday night he's planning to open a second restaurant in Palo Alto -- not another Spago but "something different."

The disclosure came when Puck was in town Sunday evening for a Passover Seder in his existing restaurant, Spago, at 265 Lytton Ave.

"It still is very much in the talking stages, but it looks like it will open sometime in 2006," he said. Puck, who lives in the Los Angeles area, said: "I come here (to Palo Alto) about once a month. But since my son is planning to go to Stanford I will be spending much more time here."

The new restaurant will not be called Spago, he said. Nor will it be called Chinois, after Puck's popular eateries in Santa Monica and Las Vegas. "It will be something different." Puck currently owns several restaurants, most of them in Southern California.

NEVER HEARD OF COMMERCIAL STREET? . . . Maybe you're over 14. A new shop quietly opened three weeks ago on one of the most obscure streets in Palo Alto. Even the store manager admits, "No one's going to come here if they don't already know about it." It's called, "All That Girl," a tiny outlet shop appealing to girls 14 and under. The store was in Town & Country Village Shopping Center for a short time two years ago.

"It wasn't a walk-around kind of place for little girls, so we moved to Valley Fair," the big shopping center in San Jose, store Manager Sheryl Lawless said. "Valley Fair loved us so much they put us into a larger space -- but it turned out to be too large, so here we are," Lawless said of the new Palo Alto location at 935 Commercial St.

"I'll bet most people come here by accident. We did," said one customer, referring to All That Girl's location. "We were lost so we made a U-turn, came down Commercial, and found this store," said one mom, accompanied by her 9-year-old daughter, who said this is her third shopping trip to All That Girl in one week.

Commercial Street is between Charleston Road and Transport Street -- behind the Midpeninsula Community Media Center at 900 San Antonio Rd. But the street may not be obscure for much longer. Just a few doors down, at 885 Commercial St., is a spa for dogs. Called "A Dog's Life," it offers doggy day care, play groups and even slumber parties. Yes, doggie slumber parties.

And at the end of Commercial Street a new pre-school is expected to open in late spring. The school is on the corner of Commercial and Transport Streets (hardly children's-sounding street names). A colorful play structure is already set up in the schoolyard and landscape workers are busy planting flowers and trees for the upcoming crop of kids, as this heretofore hidden corner of Palo Alto begins to bloom.

SOME TLC FOR T&C . . . Sorely needed renovations for Palo Alto's vintage Town & Country Village shopping center will start this summer, about two months later than originally planned -- following last October's purchase of the aging shopping center by Ellis Partners. The $20 million upgrade will take about 18 months to complete, according to Ron Weller, general manager of the mall, located at El Camino Real and Embarcadero Road.

"We're not going to shut down the property while we upgrade," Weller said, explaining that the improvements will be done in stages. "We'll be doing new lighting, new landscaping, new painting, new parking lots and new signage," he said.

Yet the wood-beam, shingled-roof, "human-scale" charm that's kept the place in business for 52 years will not be lost. The rumor mill is churning about what new shops may be coming into the mall. Curves? Trader Joe's? No and no, Weller said. But sit tight, he said. An announcement will be coming soon about some new tenants.

HYATT RICKEY'S TEARDOWN VICTIMS . . . As one 50-year old property is about to undergo a facelift, another nearly 60-year old landmark property is about to bite the dust. The official last day of business for Hyatt Rickey's is June 18. The site will be leveled to make way for 185 housing units, developed by Texas home-building company D.R. Horton.

Three collateral-damage victims of the hotels demise are Capelos, a hair salon, Emporium Antiques and Hertz Rent-A-Car, all located on the Hyatt Rickey's site facing El Camino.

"It's a mad dash," Capelo's owner Gary Javier said. "We will be moving, but nothing's signed yet -- we'll stay in Palo Alto." The shop currently is open on an appointment-only basis. The Emporium Antiques officials also said the shop will relocate and even has found a spot nearby. No word on where or when. The buzz on Hertz, on the corner of El Camino and Charleston, is that it, too, is looking for a new location before wrecking crews come in.

SPRING CLEANING, PALO ALTO STYLE . . . A few Palo Alto stores have decided it's time for a new look. The Gap has completely closed down its three-level store in the Stanford Shopping Center for a remodel that will take four months. Kids Gap and Baby Gap are still open. A neighbor of the Gap, Haagen Dazs Ice Cream, also did a complete remodel and is scheduled to reopen May 2.

On the other end of the city, Goodwill, 4085 El Camino Way, is repainting, reorganizing and reshuffling. The store is remaining open while it primps. And Dastoor, an Indian Restaurant on the Palo Alto/Mountain View border just a mile south of Goodwill on El Camino Real, has redone its buffet, lowered its prices, and hired a new manager, chef and staff.

ALL WINE IS LOCAL . . . Can a wine bar in downtown Palo Alto survive if it serves only local wines? Randy Robinson thinks so. He and his partner recently opened Vino Locale at 431 Kipling in an historic 100-year-old house.

"Ninety percent of our wine is from the Santa Cruz Mountains. There are at least 70 thriving wineries there, with more opening all the time," Robinson said. Before he opened his bar, Robinson "did the wine thing," and traveled the hills from Hollister to Woodside to sample the wines that he would eventually stock in his bar.

"I've talked to the winemakers so I can tell my customers stories about each individual winery," Robinson said. "There are so many other places around here that call themselves 'wine bars,' but they're not. They're just restaurants. Here, the focus is on wine. Food is secondary. It's European-style, where wine is the feature. That's what makes us unique." Robinson currently has about 350 bottles of wine in stock.

Heard a rumor about your favorite store or business moving out, or in, down the block or across town? Daryl Savage will check it out. She can be e-mailed at shoptalk@paweekly.com.

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