By Elena Kadvany
E-mail Elena Kadvany
About this blog: I am a perpetually hungry twenty-something journalist, born and raised in Menlo Park and currently working at the Palo Alto Weekly as education and youth staff writer. I graduated from USC with a major in Spanish and a minor in jo...
(More)About this blog: I am a perpetually hungry twenty-something journalist, born and raised in Menlo Park and currently working at the Palo Alto Weekly as education and youth staff writer. I graduated from USC with a major in Spanish and a minor in journalism. Though my first love is journalism, food is a close second. I am constantly on the lookout for new restaurants to try, building an ever-expanding "to eat" list. As a journalist, I'm always trolling news sources and social media websites with an eye for local food news, from restaurant openings and closings to emerging food trends. When I was a teenager growing up in Menlo Park, I always drove up to the city on weekends with the singular purpose of finding a better meal than I could at home. But in the past year or so, the Peninsula's food culture has been totally transformed, with many new restaurants opening and a continuous stream of San Francisco restaurants coming south to open Peninsula outposts. Don't navigate this food boom hungry and alone! Feed me your tips on new chefs and eats and together we'll share them with the broader community.
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Palo Alto's new hot-dog eatery Chez Franc has lowered its prices by several dollars, both as a result of making their own rather than buying dogs and in response to diners' feedback that prices were too high.
Chez Franc, which
opened at 415 California Ave. in January, is now serving up its dogs for $6 to $13 instead of $12 to $15. Sandwiches and sides have also dropped in price.
"The main reason is that we are able to produce hot dogs at a lower price than we were buying them," owner Jacquetta Lannan wrote in an email. "We use very high quality ingredients, but it's still less expensive for us to make them than to buy.
"The secondary reason is that the primary negative feedback we received was our high prices. We looked for cost savings opportunities with our vendors and products."
A banner at the California Avenue restaurant advertising the new, lower prices.
Lannan and chef Dan Sung, who came to Chez Franc from The Village Pub in Woodside, also reworked the menu so that the dogs are not bundled with sides, but instead customers can purchase a franc solo or add a side if they wish. Fries are $2; slaw is $1.
Lannan said Sung is also working on a "limited edition burger" that is made with two very thinly pounded patties of Wagyu beef, topped with Tillamook cheddar and other ingredients on an English muffin-style bun.
Check out the new menu and prices
here.
For all you sweet tooths out there, Chez Franc is also now serving ice cream from San Francisco's
Humphrey Slocombe. Grab a scoop of the shop's famed
Secret Breakfast flavor (made with bourbon and corn flakes), Blue Bottle Vietnamese Iced Coffee, Harvey Milk and Honey or Tahitian Vanilla. Lannan said they'll soon have a freezer and will be selling pints as well.
