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By Elena Kadvany
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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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Olive Garden shutters in Palo Alto
Uploaded: May 30, 2016
The Palo Alto location of international Italian-restaurant chain Olive Garden is no more.
The restaurant at 2515 El Camino Real closed on May 21, days before the Palo Alto City Council would
approve a proposal to demolish the restaurant and replace it with a mixed-use development featuring offices, condominiums and retail space.
The developer for the new project plans to replace the 9,694-square-foot restaurant with a 39,858-square-foot, block-long development.
Hunter Robinson, manager of media relations and communications for Olive Garden, said that closing the Palo Alto outpost was a “difficult business decision, and one we made very carefully and thoughtfully, particularly because it impacts our employees and our guests.
"In no way does this reflect on the quality of our employees' work," he noted in an email, “and we’re doing everything we can to help every team member find a new job."
He said that the company offered Palo Alto employees the option of working at other Olive Garden restaurants or sister restaurants in the area.
The Palo Alto Olive Garden first opened in November 1992. When asked if the company intended to reopen elsewhere in Palo Alto, Robinson wrote: "We are always looking for new locations across the country for Olive Garden, but we don’t comment on any new sites until we have the proper approvals in place."
There are nearby Olive Gardens in San Francisco, San Jose, Milpitas and Fremont, among 800-plus locations across the globe.
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