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Just as one fast-casual poké eatery opened in Palo Alto, another announced its impending arrival: Poki Bowl, which put up a temporary sign in the window of 2305 El Camino Real.
Poki Bowl also posted a photo of the sign with the caption “We see you Palo Alto!” on the company Instagram.
Owner Nick Nguyen confirmed the opening via email.
“We can’t wait to open our door to all the customers requesting us to expand to the area,” he wrote.
Poki Bowl, which operates two locations in San Jose, has taken over a space in Palo Alto that has been vacant for more than a year since the Cheese Steak Shop closed.
There, like the many other poké places sprouting up throughout the Bay Area in recent months, customers can customize a bowl based on the Hawaiian staple of diced and marinated seafood. Choose from a base of rice, chips, mixed greens (or half and half), then add your choice of poké, sauces and toppings.
At Poki Bowl, a regular bowl with three scoops of fish goes for $9.50 and a large with four scoops for $10.95. Get an extra scoop of seafood at $2 a pop. Here’s the full menu.
Poki Bowl does set itself apart from the poké pack with one menu item: macaron ice cream sandwiches from San Jose’s Mavens Creamery. Think regular ice cream sandwich, but with large macarons instead of cookies. The San Jose Poki Bowl locations serve flavors like mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, coffee hazelnut, dark chocolate sea salt, green tea and Thai iced tea.
Nguyen said if all goes well, he hopes to be open in a month or less.
When it opens, Poki Bowl will join the newly opened pokéLOVE at Town & Country Village in Palo Alto and Poke Bar inside Ava’s Market and Deli on Castro Street in downtown Mountain View.
Another eatery called Pokéworks was slated to come to 211 Castro St. in late 2015, but has yet to open. The last word from partner Kasper Hsu was that he aimed to be open in the beginning of June.