Eating & Nightlife
Palo Alto is home to some of the best restaurants in the Bay Area, in many cases rivaling the best restaurants in San Francisco. It is a favorite dinner spot for locals living throughout Silicon Valley and visiting tourists and business people from around the world.
Most of the best restaurants are relatively small and independent, and without reservations you can expect to wait up to an hour or longer, especially on weekends.
Visitors looking for familiar but quality food will find lots to choose from. Chains including The Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen, P.F. Chang's, Max's Opera Cafe, Il Fornaio, Gordon Biersch and Buca di Beppo all have Palo Alto locations.
Restaurants are the focal point for nightlife in Palo Alto, and it's not uncommon for them to still be seating customers at 10 or 11 o'clock on weekends. A popular bar scene consisting of mostly non-local young professionals and some Stanford students keeps downtown Palo Alto going until after 1 a.m. A few restaurants and bars feature live music or DJs.
For live theater, check out TheatreWorks, a nationally-acclaimed group that draws from throughout the Peninsula and Silicon Valley. Palo Alto Players, a popular community theater group that was the Peninsula's first theater group when formed in 1931, offers a regular schedule of plays at the Lucie Stern Community Center in Palo Alto. The much-loved Palo Alto Children's Theatre has it's own dedicated stage at the community center and has ignited the acting passion of many local children. Check the calendar for other theater, music and dance offerings in Palo Alto and at Stanford.
View a PDF of a [https://www.paloaltoonline.com/special_pubs/paloalto/249/section1.pdf useful listing of restaurants published in our printed Visitors Guide.
Looking for a good place for a weekend brunch? These restaurants offer special brunch menus.
Want to limit your search to the places our readers selected as "The Best?" These restaurants, cafes and eateries were the winners in our most recent "Best of Palo Alto" contest.
Posh Bagel
Besides serving up bagels and bagel sandwiches, this chain also offers smoothies and salads.
Regal Bagels
Located in Valley Park Plaza, this small bagel shop serves different types of bagels, as well as pastries and coffee.
Quattro Restaurant at the Four Seasons
Elegant Italian cuisine served in a contemporary glass jewel-box setting inside the Four Seasons Hotel. Antipasti, pasta dishes, pizza, meats and fish are uniformly very good. Desserts are first-rate. Lively bar scene. Excellent service, broad-based wine cellar.
Alice's Restaurant
Alice's serves a basic breakfast and lunch menu. Evening fare includes a surprising menu of dishes, such as risotto, prawns, pork chops.
Buck's of Woodside
Far-ranging menu includes omelets, chicken piccata and burgers, with a considerable fan base for the coffee cake. Funky Western atmosphere, with cowboy-hat lampshades and eclectic wall decorations.
Village Pub, The Best of Winner - Best romantic restaurant Deep burgundy walls, white linen covered tables glowing with candlelight and set far enough apart for intimate conversation,
Village Pub serves some of the best dishes we've had since visits to New York's top restaurants. Save room for a decadent dessert souffle or end on a lighter note with homemade sorbets.
Woodside Bakery and Cafe Best of Winner - Best Bakery, Almanac Readers Choice, 2011
The bakery side turns out serviceable sticky buns and cakes with gooey buttercream roses, but the cafe side has refined and distilled its hip Cal-Ital menu.
Brian's Restaurant
The owners of the Los Altos Coffee Shop also run Brian's, a reasonably priced spot for breakfast and lunch. Milkshakes, waffles and scrambled eggs are some of the tastier standards, and the patio is attractive and inviting, with great umbrellas.
Lisa's Tea Treasures
Afternoon tea with all the English-style trimmings: scones, Devonshire cream, pot pie, cucumber sandwiches, salads and the like. A child's tea includes pizza bites and PB&J tea sandwiches, too.
Tom's Depot
This breakfast and lunch spot in Los Altos offers burgers, sandwiches, and ice cream. Breakfast offerings include scrambles and huevos rancheros.
Village Pantry, The
Friendly service, a homey atmosphere, and breakfast served all day: definitely inviting. The lunch menu features a broad array of sandwiches, burgers and salads. Breakfast specials include the Village Benedict and Eggs San Francisco (English muffin, imitation crabmeat, Swiss cheese, and poached eggs with hollandaise sauce).
Main St. Coffee Roasting Co.
Coffee roasting company that serves scones, pancakes, and other fresh baked goods daily for breakfast and lunch. Patio seating with toy boxes offered for children.
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