Palo Alto

Palo Alto's dining record is shaped in part by liquor regulation: post-Prohibition state law barred hard-alcohol sales within a mile and a half of campuses such as Stanford, which pushed roadside houses onto the southern stretch of El Camino Real. That "Restaurant Row" served Highway 101 travelers, courting couples, and students; restaurateur and hotelier John Rickey held three of its best-known addresses — Rickey's Studio Inn, Rick's Swiss Chalet, and Dinah's Shack, which he acquired in 1950. Andre's L'Omelette, a French landmark from 1932 until 1995, issued numbered postcards with its martinis until 1970.

The town's older, everyday trade is preserved at the Peninsula Creamery, opened in 1923 by John Santana Sr. and J.B. Howell as the Peninsula Fountain and Grill, a survivor of the Bay Area's dairying period, when pasture covered what became the Stanford Shopping Center.

Café culture arrived in 1959, when Vernon Gates opened St. Michael's Alley as a European-style coffeehouse at 436 University Avenue — a room for folk, jazz, poetry, and plays that gave early stage time to Joan Baez, Jerry Garcia, and members of Jefferson Airplane. Gates closed it in 1966 and reopened it seven years later on Emerson Street as a full-menu restaurant.