The Long Life Noodle Company in Palo Alto has been one of our absolute favorite restaurants ever since we discovered it quite by chance a few years ago. Whenever we went to the Gem & Jewelry Show in San Mateo we drove the extra few miles for a good lunch, sometimes even ordered an extra take-out for dinner that night.
So, when we went to the show in San Mateo again yesterday, we fully expected to eat there again - had already picked out our favorites. We were more than a little surprised (gobsmacked, actually) when we walked to where the restaurant was in the Stanford Shopping Center and found the restaurant gone. There's obviously construction going on in the place and there were signs announcing that a "Sprinkles Cupcakes" was going to open in the summer of 2008.
Sprinkles Cupcakes replacing an incredibly popular Asian restaurant? I cannot understand it. This place was always full, we've had to wait for a table on several occasions. We asked around and while nobody had any details, a dispute with the landlord (probably meaning a raised rent) was mentioned. Supposedly, they closed about a month ago. I've googled but can't find anything other than reviews - just about all of them good.
Yes, there are two more restaurants in that small chain - both in San Francisco (one only open during the week, the one on Steuart Street; the other in the Metreon where the food isn't as good and the atmosphere is non-existant) but this was the best. And, while google says there's one in Berkeley, they are wrong. That one disappeared years ago.
I hope they've opened in another location and I just haven't been able to figure out where but if that's not the case, I am pretty upset.
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1 week ago
4 comments:
I know exactly how you feel. We had a great Vietnamese restaurant and one day, they were closed. The replacement was originally Salvadoran, but they now also advertise Mexican and Peruvian, and they're not very good at any of those. We don't have any other pho restaurants locally, much less a full-fledged Vietnamese restaurant.
Raised rents, too. My friend Mark had to close his furniture store when the landlord doubled the rent -- furniture doesn't have that much margin -- and the space is still empty almost a year later.
That's frustrating, isn't it? Both of those scenarios.
Seems to me that your friend Mark's landlord shot himself in the foot if his property is still empty after one year. I hope Mark can find a space somewhere else and reopen.
Yes, I feel some schadenfreude every time I go by the shopping center and see it empty. Mark didn't want to own a new store, he's working selling somewhere else. Lots of furniture stores are going out of business because the economy is low and there really isn't much of a margin, so he didn't think there was much use in continuing in furniture.
I can understand your feeling. Greed has its own reward.
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