Not sure how Lotties can be the "first dedicated ice cream shop" since there was previously a Haagen Dazs. It's closed now, but regardless this isn't a first. Too bad we're not getting Walnut Creek's best ice cream parlor: San Francisco Creamery. So much better than the tiny portions at Lotties...

I'm good without having Walnut Creek's best anything.

Remember Blum's when they had a shop at Stanford?

Thanks for this report, though I wonder how many readers spot the implicit irony in its message about this mall "steadily expand[ing] its dining options in recent years." While Stanford U. still owned the mall, under manager Rosemary McAndrews a destination-quality cluster of local food vendors formed around its "street-market" quarter. Including classy independent produce and butcher shops; a compact dealer of exotic foods/cheeses/wines/spirits rivaling Draeger's' selections; and Teri Hope's Palo Alto Coffee Roasting Company (which "For years. . . won annual awards from the mall's managers for consistently raking in the highest sales per square foot"). Teri Hope was Santa Clara County's pioneer high-quality local coffee roaster, decades before today's Bay-Area brand-name premium roasting firms; she may well have inspired some of them. Then, 15 years ago, Stanford sold the mall to Indiana-based Simon Property Group and everything changed. Simon Group, which operated many shopping malls, made clear by its actions that it either didn't understand or didn't value having a county-wide food-shopping destination as part of the mall. The new owners booted out Teri Hope, explicitly preferring Starbucks with its "national chain and national marketing." (The neighboring specialty food-wine retailer, Oakville Grocery, imploded around the same time, for unrelated reasons.) Even after Hope's business was ejected in favor of nationally-marketed mediocrity, for a while the mall's new owners overlooked the mall's website still boasting of a "European-style street market where the scents of gourmet coffees, fresh flowers and international cuisine fill the air." You can read the whole story as it was reported in 2006: Web Link

Edy's was wonderful -wasn't it @ T & C Village? I don't remember it @ Stanford. Oakville Grocery was a great too, so much better than it's replacement in the same location. My vote for ice cream now would be Bi-Rite or Tin Pot Creamery. Remember Niven's & Andronico's. It was very convenient to have a good supermarket in the center.

I miss PA Coffee Roasting Company -- great staff and best drinks. I guess people come to malls to shop at chains and don't care so much about quality. Never mind supporting local businesses, or even smalll local chains.

Just what we need, more sugary drinks, more unhealthy sweets! Hooray for obesity promoters!

Caffeine fiend wrote: "I guess people come to malls to shop at chains and don't care so much about quality." That wasn't so clear at the Stanford Center, when (under its original Stanford ownership) Teri Hope's coffee business "won annual awards from the mall's managers for consistently raking in the highest sales per square foot" while the "European-style street market" of specialty food vendors drew customers from other cities (like me) to the mall. Yet the new ownership from Indiana ("America's largest shopping-mall owner") chose not only to show their indifference to the mall's unique status as a specialty-food destination, but through their treatment of Teri Hope, even to actively disrespect that strength. Whereas, per the article I linked above, the new owners were accustomed to Starbucks in 42 of their other malls. It was those new owners (Simon Group) that avowedly preferred chains and, implicitly, chain-focused customers. Teri Hope continued her Los Gatos roasting and retail operation. One former manager of her Stanford mall shop, Nick Chaput, has run a spin-off business in my neighborhood of Mountain View for nearly two decades: Dana Street Roasting Company, Mountain View's most distinctive independent coffee house and the town's unofficial nerve center.

@ More sugar please - The chain (Joe and the Juice) is Danish. Ironically, Denmark has one of the lowest childhood and adult obesity rates in Europe. The other chain opening, Nespresso, is based out of Switzerland -- which has an obesity rate even lower than Denmark. Both are considerably lower than the United States, Canada or Mexico. Apparently, "sugar" isn't deemed as evil in countries where the kids are encouraged to be active and politicians aren't trying to tax a product simply because some people have little self-control.

@Nayeli The soft-drink taxes in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco were passed by referendum, so it's not just politicians who want to tax soft drinks, its the majority in those communities. Also, ironically, Denmark had a soft-drink tax from the 1930s to 2014. Web Link I'll leave you to do the research on Switezerland, as you seem to need a little practice in checking your facts.