A Guided Tour of Palo Alto

‹ From the South . California Avenue District . Touring Stanford ›

California Avenue District

Park your car at the County Courthouse (270 Grant Avenue, near California Avenue), where civil-rights activist Angela Davis was put on trial during the '60s. If you like, head upstairs to watch less-famous defendants plead their cases. The small-claims docket is usually more interesting than anything Judge Judy ever decides, featuring everything from purloined computers to defrocked New Age gurus.

From there, take a walk up California Avenue. Lamentably, Printer's Inc. bookstore (312 California Avenue) will soon be gone, done in by cyberspace competitors. But its sister coffeeshop, which serves as a popular haunt for bookworms who like to be alone together, will remain. You can get your java three ways at Printer's Inc.: in a steaming mug, in a tall glass or by injection.

Across the street, you'll find The Edge (260 California Avenue), a nightclub once known as Keystone Palo Alto in the days when the Jerry Garcia Band helped put it on the map. The current lineup ranges from hip-hop to reggae to grunge; it's sometimes great, and always loud.

Nearby is Palo Alto's most honored restaurant, a nondescript hamburger joint called Kirk's (361 California Avenue). This place has been named the best local hamburger maker so many times that it's run out of wallspace to hang the plaques. For decades, Kirk's served only burgers, franks, sodas and milkshakes. If you wanted fries, you had to go somewhere else. The burgers were so good, though, most people didn't. The manager added fries just last year after the death of the restaurant's tradition-bound founder, but the burgers have stayed the same: huge and juicy.

Other notable establishments on California include the homey Palo Alto Baking Co. (381 California Ave.) and an abandoned movie theater-cum-Persian rug emporium (431 California). Mostly, however, you'll find a slew of chi-chi restaurants. The best of the lot are Cafe Brioche (445 California Avenue), a Provencal delight emphasizing wine-enriched entrees, and Cafe Pro Bono (2437 Birch, near the courthouse), a white-tablecloth European eatery with one of the best duck dishes on the planet. You're looking at somewhere between $20 and $40 per person for dinner at these places, but, unlike downtown Palo Alto's fancy restaurants, the service is usually excellent and patrons are not rushed through their meals.

If you're in the mood for something less formal, there are two tiny family-owned ethnic hot spots with very limited menus, places where the emphasis is on doing just one thing but doing it right. Cho's Restaurant (213 California Avenue) makes outstanding potstickers--and not much else--selling six of them, complete with hot sauce, for under $3. One block west, Shaikh's Indian Food (393 California), usually open until early evening, specializes in three dishes--beef, chicken, and vegetable curry--all available in a combination plate with other Indian delicacies for less than $5.

‹ From the South . California Avenue District . Touring Stanford ›

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