Street cafes are becoming a downtown scene
“Menlo Dark” no more? Menlo Park is hoping its new and expanding downtown street dining program will help it shed that unflattering moniker.
Six restaurants on Santa Cruz Avenue have recently converted roughly 20 parking spaces to street cafés complete with enough tables and chairs for a total of 169 patrons.
One of the restaurants, Bistro Vita, expects to stay open until midnight three nights a week thanks to the program, which is a partnership between the city and its merchants.
“From 10 to midnight, we’ll serve light dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday,” said Bistro Vita owner Ali Elsafy. “You go down to Redwood City, everything is open late . ... People like to sit outside.”
Other eateries sporting their own street cafés are Galata Bistro, LB Steak, Angela Mio, Mademoiselle Colette and Left Bank, as well as Harvest furniture store.
Left Bank helped the city test the street café idea beginning in 2014 and today has a much expanded dining area. The street cafés are still considered an experiment to be re-evaluated by the city in five years..
Debora Ferrand, owner of Mademoiselle Colette, said she plans to extend the restaurant’s hours later and add a happy hour starting this summer, thanks to its street café.
“Until now, it was raining so much it was impossible to start this,” she said.
Ferrand also said the additional 20 outside seats encourage patrons to stay longer, in tune with European culture.
“It’s not increased a lot my number of customers, but I think it’s better for my customers because before they had to wait for a seat,” she said, referring to the weekend rush. “During the week, it’s more spread out. I have people that come here for breakfast and they stay longer.”
And many patrons have positive things to say about the street cafés.
“I really like it. It makes it more friendly. You see people passing by, (you’re) more connected to all the people that are out shopping,” said Betsy Bradford, an Atherton resident celebrating her birthday last week at Bistro Vita. “Downtown Menlo Park is already great. I think this just adds to it . ... I basically just like being outside.”
Melinda Techler, visiting from San Francisco with her husband, said she stopped to have lunch at Mademoiselle Colette when she learned they could bring their dog, Eliot, into the outdoor area.
“We were in Paris earlier, like about six months ago, and it feels like that out here,” Techler said.
Hap Wotila, a longtime Menlo Park resident who was eating with his wife at Left Bank on Wednesday, said the street cafés evoke a sense of community that’s been missing in recent years.
“I feel that we are very separated here,” Wotila said. “Anything that gets us interacting with people, whether you go to church, whether you go to a sports game, whether it’s the Scouts (or) whether it’s dining out like this . ... Anything that the city of Menlo Park can do to promote more of a community is a good idea — anything that makes us acknowledge each other a little bit.”
Wotila’s wife, Melissa Moody, said they are longtime Left Bank patrons and find the new space is more comfortable than the seating on the sidewalk and less noisy than inside.
“It’s less noisy,” Moody said. “Even though you have the sound of cars, it doesn’t bother me at all, and it’s fresh air. People will sit down and stop by and talk to you about anything.”
The city spent roughly $410,000 to kick-start the café program, which amounts to about twothirds of the cost. That money paid for the base structures and each business funds the rest of the work, as well as custom add-ons such as lighting, heating lamps and landscaping.
According to Jim Cogan, the city’s housing and economic development manager, there’s a possibility the City Council will expand the program to other businesses after reviewing it.
There’s also thought that the street cafés could bring more foot traffic to adjacent businesses. Erik Mollegaard, of D.J.’s Hair Design, said Mademoiselle Colette’s street café is helping attract customers to the adjacent hair salon and is nicer to look at than the cars that used to be parked there.
Elsafy said he has been asking the city to partner on street cafés ever since he opened Bistro Vita 20 years ago.
“It’s good for the city because the more food we sell, the more alcohol we sell. It generates sales tax to them and we’re not even on their payroll,” he said.
Some patrons interviewed for this story said they favor more outdoor cafés and think it’s OK for the city to continue subsidizing them as long as it doesn’t involve higher taxes.
“Some of that investment they’re going to get back in money that goes to the city from increased patronage,” Wotila said.
Added Bradford: “I’d like to see more cafés on Santa Cruz Avenue for sure. There just needs to be more restaurants in general.”