After 30 years, Max’s Opera Cafe closing

Fans of Max’s meaty sandwiches, classic soups and mile- high desserts have until Saturday afternoon to get their fix in Palo Alto.

After 30 years, Max’s Opera Cafe is closing at Stanford Shopping Center.

The Palo Alto restaurant could not reach agreement with the center’s owner, the Simon Property Group, on a new lease, according to owner Dennis Berkowitz.

“It is with great sadness that I have to announced the closing of Max’s Op- era Cafe at the end of day on Saturday, June 30,” a sign posted at the restaurant reads. “For 30 years we have served this great community. We appreciate your patronage over the years. Unfortunately, as our lease has expired, we were not able to enter into a new lease with Simon. … I hope youwill miss us asmuch as we will miss Stanford Shopping Center.”

The restaurant will close at 4 p.m. Saturday.

In an interview with the Mercury News, Berkowitz blamed a drop in business on the increasing number of restaurant competitors that Simon has brought into the center— especially at the front where the new Bloomingdale’s was built.

“The traf fic pattern changed,” he said. “We couldn’t afford to stay there.”

Restaurant competition along University Avenue also has risen tremendously over the decades, he said.

But he called it a good run in Palo Alto, noting that Max’s was one of the first tenants of the “street market” at the center, along with Bravo Fono and Schaub’s market. “Not many restaurants can claim they were in business 30 years.”

He added: “I put all my kids through college … on corned beef and pastrami.”

Fans of those sandwiches will find the deli classics — plus a lineup of new offerings (think housemade turkey and quinoa burgers, yucca fries, kale salad) — at the Original Max’s at Highway 101 and Broadway in Burlingame, which underwent a full renovation last fall.

There are also franchise-operated Max’ s in Redwood City at Sequoia Station on El Camino Real and in San Francisco on Van Ness Avenue.