Shop Talk: New mall stores; Chez TJ pursues revamp

In this week’s Shop Talk column, read about a host of new stores opening at Stanford Shopping Center, a bank that will soon open at the new College Terrace Centre in Palo Alto and plans to replace a Mountain View Michelin-starred restaurant with a four-story office building.

ARC’TERYX OPENS IN CALIF. … Arc’teryx, the Canadian high-performance outdoor apparel and equipment manufacturer, is opening its first California retail store at Stanford Shopping Center (next to AllSaints) on May 19. The store is part of the company’s push to open a limited number of retail locations in key cities around the globe to complement its wholesale business. Until recently, the Arc’teryx brand had been exclusively distributed through specialty outdoor clothing and equipment retailers online and at more than 3,000 stores worldwide, including REI and Nordstroms. The Stanford store will be the company’s 25th brand store worldwide and its third on the West Coast. The company — ranked No. 1 international outdoor brand in 2015, according to a Nielsen study — makes jackets, fleeces, shells and parkas, along with climbing, hiking and running gear, and skiing and snowboarding apparel. The Stanford store also will serve as a venue for local events for the climbing, skiing and outdoor community in the Bay Area, according to a company blog posting. Arc’teryx will celebrate its opening weekend at Stanford with beer and snacks, a meet and greet with climbing athlete Jesse Huey, demo stations and giveaways. Arc’teryx is among a slew of new openings at Stanford this spring that includes about eight retailers at various locations throughout the mall. Other shops that recently have opened or are about to open include: Madewell, a clothing store known for its jeans, soft tees and slouchy button-downs for young women (opening June 6 across from Michael Kors); CH Premier Jewelers (next to Stella McCartney), The Shade Store (in the space recently vacated by Brandy Melville), Prosepectacles, Going In Style Travel Accessories, Travelex Currency Exchange and The Tailor Maid. — L.T.

BANK CLAIMS ABANDONED YELP SPACE … First Republic Bank is preparing to open its second Palo Alto office in the newly constructed College Terrace Centre where Yelp initially had planned to expand its operations back in 2014 but later pulled out from. Signage for the wealth-management company was mounted last week, and there were job postings on Glassdoor.com, including one for a banking offices assistant manager. The new, 45,472-square-foot office at 2100 El Camino Real is across the street and one block north of First Republic’s existing branch on the corner of El Camino and Cambridge Avenue. The new location will include open office space and conference and data rooms, according to the city’s Planning & Community Environment Department, which issued the bank a use-and-occupancy permit on April 26. Palo Alto developer Jim Baer, who leases the El Camino/Cambridge space to First Republic, told the Weekly in 2016 he believed the company planned to use the ground-floor at the new site for branch banking and the upper-floor for financial services and professional offices. The new branch is be rumored to opening in June. Greg Berardi, a spokesman for the bank, would not comment on the opening date or whether First Republic plans to move its existing bank branch to the new site. First Republic signed a 10-year lease in 2015 for the College Terrace Centre space, according to market analytics company CompStak. — L.T.

CHEZ TJ FOREGOES VICTORIAN … Chez TJ, Mountain View’s high-end restaurant serving gourmet dinners in a historic Victorian house on Villa Street, along with neighboring restaurant and brewery Tied House, are moving forward with a joint plan to build a four-story office building at their sites, according to Chez TJ executive chef Jarad Gallagher. As proposed, the bottom floor of the new building will house a new 3,000-square-foot restaurant on top of several levels of underground parking. Gallagher said he hopes the space will house the next iteration of the Michelin-starred restaurant, though the developer has not yet decided on an operator. George Aviet opened Chez TJ in 1982 with then-partner and chef Thomas J. McCombie in a 1894 home. Gallagher has served as executive chef since 2012, after a series of head chefs cycled through the kitchen and then left to open their own high-end restaurants in the Bay Area. Gallagher said Aviet eventually plans to retire and will turn over the new Chez TJ to Gallagher. Tied House also has deep roots in Mountain View. The microbrewery opened at 954 Villa St. in 1988. Daniel Minkoff of the Minkoff Group, which is developing the project, said that his company has not discussed a vision for the space, a “gastropub” serving modern cuisine, with Chez TJ and Tied House. For Chez TJ, this would mean shifting away from its longtime fine-dining concept. Gallagher said he and Aviet are currently looking for a local space to relocate Chez TJ to while construction is underway on Villa. There, the restaurant’s fine-dining “legacy” will continue as its owner and chef figure out what will “be best for the new spot,” Gallagher said. — E.K.

Compiled by the Weekly staff; this week written by Linda Taaffe and Elena Kadvany. Got leads on interesting and news-worthy retail developments? The Weekly will check them out. Email shoptalk@paweekly.com.