With pizza on his mind, and on several of this issue’s pages, the columnist made a triumphant return to the oldest Round Table in the world.
On El Camino Real in Menlo Park, just steps from a few amazing bookstores and several Metro racks, I waltzed into Round Table Pizza, the same continuous operation that started with the very first Round Table pizza parlor that Bill Larson opened in 1959. The story is not new, but the physical spot and the legend both deserve to be revisited. In a great way, it does not sit in some hideous strip mall next to a Jamba Juice, a Chase Bank and a Panda Express. Even with gentrification looming in every direction, this stretch of El Camino still retains a little bit of character here and there. Fortunately.
The current Round Table building, while not the original structure, contains all the history. As the plaque inside the place tells us, Larson had $1800 and a dream. He built the first restaurant literally by hand, making tables out of local redwoods and spare doors. The name Round Table came from his very first table. This is how, and where, the whole damn Round Table Pizza chain started.
However, before any scholarly drifter even gets to that point, the plaque on the outside of the building spills a slightly adjusted set of details. Larson used his parents’ furniture and $800 in collateral to obtain a $2500 loan to begin the business. Following its success, he constructed the current building in 1976, designing it after the Danish Tudor style found in Solvang. The Menlo Park Historical Association placed the plaque on the building.
With so much history, it’s no surprise the current place still displays many pieces of ephemera. Right inside the door, we find a small roped-off area with an original-era mosaic and a tiny model of the original restaurant’s interior. We see photos of Bill and the original restaurant.
On the opposite wall, past the bar, there’s a model of the original restaurant’s exterior, with a Spanish-style tiled roof and a doorway that separated two windows. To the left of the door, it said “Ye Old Pub.” To the right, “Pizza to go,” both of which were hand-painted with Old English lettering.
On another plaque, we learn that Larson was born in 1933, grew up in Palo Alto and opened this place because he wanted to create a family joint with superb pizza. There are now approximately 400 Round Table locations, most of which are in California. Larson’s son Bob eventually took over the business before selling it a few years ago, although he still owns the building. The current business endures despite the encroaching condo-pocalypse in every direction.
Meanwhile, out on the patio, we even see an armor-clad Knight from the Round Table, presiding in front of a water fountain. There is a banquet space for several dozen people. In the era of corporate boardrooms and generic hotel meeting facilities, one simply doesn’t find offsite arrangements like this anymore. The whole place is like a throwback to simpler times.
Of course, the Round Table isn’t the only historical tidbit in Menlo Park.
In order to walk off the pizza he just ate, the wandering scholar trudged down Santa Cruz Ave to the Peet’s Coffee. This was the second-ever Peet’s, after the first one in Berkeley. It opened in 1971 and was later a meeting place for the original Apple Computer crowd. According to a source, several things were hashed out at this particular Peet’s back when Apple was just starting.
And of course, there was, is, and shall forever be Kepler’s Bookstore. I can’t even calculate the number of inspiring author events I’ve attended at Kepler’s. Despite the onslaught of Tech Bros who savor the destruction of books and bookstores, Kepler’s remains.
Yes, Menlo Park can be a little confusing if you don’t know the landscape. Just like Los Gatos is the land of a thousand hair salons, Menlo Park is the land of a thousand rug shops. Yet with the original Round Table, the second Peet’s and the greatest bookstore in the South Bay, any revisit is worth the time. The columnist shuffled away a new man.
