Willow Street Cafe
3398 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, CA
650.493.3470
| posthoc's Late Night Restaurant Guide |
When Willow Street Café filled the space that Fresco left in Palo Alto, I thought this might be it: "our place," an affordable restaurant close to home where the food is good and the cheerful waitstaff greet us with "the usual?"
Unfortunately, Willow Street took several hits in the "why we won’t be regulars" column before redeeming itself. The first hit was the lack of crowd; despite some families, there weren’t many people. This could have been due to the second hit: the service.
The waiter assigned to our section was probably new, as he seemed genuinely confused by almost everything on the menu. I asked for a garden salad and he repeated my order back to me as "one Chinese salad to start with;" I made sure he had the order right, then I checked and realized there isn’t even a Chinese salad on the menu. Still, I was willing to give it a chance.
As the meal began, the disappointment continued. The soup arrived cold, the wings arrived late and the iced tea never arrived at all. As I awaited the pizza, I noticed that Willow Street had made few changes to the Fresco décor. In fact, judging from their condition, the chairs were left over from years of Fresco customer use. Furthermore, where I expected the din of a popular restaurant, I found the lack of customers and the openness of the restaurant made for lots of people trying not to make eye contact. It felt like the kind of depressingly quiet atmosphere local Stanford students might chose as the perfect location for the "let’s just be friends" speech.
Relief, if not complete redemption, came in the form of a barbecue chicken pizza. The crust was a golden brown and the generous pieces of chicken were tender and delicious. The $9.75 pizza is the perfect size for one hungry appetite or for two appetites already stuffed with appetizers. The lamb sandwich, too, was savory and came with Yukon gold potatoes. The food at Willow Street is reason enough to give it a chance.
Willow Street has several locations in the bay area: Willow Glen, Los Gatos, San Rafael, West Gate and now Palo Alto. The Los Gatos location boasts yummy food, swift service and a menu varied enough to frequent at lunch and never get bored. Palo Alto’s Willow Street, on the other hand, has found something successful in simple, tasty, oven fired pizza. The menu does include wings, pizza, pasta and broiled salmon but is not terribly creative; just delicious food here which, judging from our visit, attracts families.
Despite the atmosphere and the service, I haven’t given up hope. I’ll be back to Willow Street. Its convenient location and good food make it worthy of another shot.
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