DOWNTOWN: Spago Palo Alto sets opening date

New restaurant will take over Stars' space on Lytton Avenue on Dec. 15

Spago Palo Alto, the latest restaurant in Wolfgang Puck's chain of trendy eateries, will open for business Dec. 15 in the space now occupied by Stars Palo Alto.

Puck and his wife, Barbara Lazaroff, announced the opening date earlier this week. They said construction schedule delays have forced them to open later than the owners wanted. Initially, Spago was scheduled to open this month.

Stars is expected to close Nov. 10, and the building, which previously housed the Gatehouse restaurant, will be remodeled by restaurant architect Adam Tihany.

Stars, partly owned by chef Jeremiah Tower, opened at the 265 Lytton Ave. in 1995, and business started off strong. Within months, Tower took a more limited role in the restaurant and business sagged, leaving Palo Alto developer Jim Baer and 60 other Silicon Valley investors to run the restaurant. The same group will run Spago, with Puck owning 50 percent of the restaurant.

Puck's Spago restaurants originated in West Hollywood in 1982, and there are now Spago's in Beverly Hills, Chicago, Las Vegas, Mexico City and Tokyo. Puck and Lazaroff also own Postrio in San Francisco.

--Elizabeth Darling Lorenz

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