The brothers would spend more than three decades serving cannelloni to Jimmy Durante and other not-so-famous clientele at their distinctive red-checkered tables. In 1956, brothers Harry, Rudy, George and Art Alfinito opened the beloved Rudolpho’s at the corner of Los Robles Avenue and El Camino. Fine French cuisine thrived just off El Camino at Villa Lafayette - home to chef Adrien Jouan, who had started cooking as a 10-year-old apprentice in Paris. Chinese Chicken Salad and other tastes of the Orient could be found at Ming’s Chinese Restaurant at the corner of El Camino and Vista Road (Ming’s moved to its current location off Embarcadero Road in 1967). Other options along Restaurant Row provided international flavors from all over the world. The cuisine was admired throughout the northern part of the state and its dining room featured paintings from Rickey’s vast (and rather expensive) art collection. Rickey’s Studio Club became a local hot spot in the 1950s and for more reasons than just Mrs. From 1961-1985, the restaurant served some 3 million meals on El Camino Way where the Goodwill store now stands. The Chalet hosted the first meeting of the still-active Peninsula Swiss Club. Rick’s Swiss Chalet was geared specifically to the food and tastes of the owner’s native Switzerland and provided European ambiance, courtesy of Southern Bavaria’s Edelweiss Trio. The great variety of cuisines that could be found on one road.ĭinah’s Shack began in the late ‘20s as a Southern style chicken-on-toast stand - to which Rickey later added the scores of appetizers to be found in the famed Scandinavian smorgasbord. Rickey’s Studio Inn, Rick’s Swiss Chalet and Dinah’s Shack (bought by Rickey in 1950) were all well-known stops for Highway 101 travelers. ![]() Three of the most storied of these restaurants were owned at one time by the same man - the venerable restaurateur and hotel wiz, John Rickey. As a result, dinner couples, highway travelers and university students in search of a drink all frequented Restaurant Row on the old King’s Highway. State laws passed after prohibition banned hard alcohol sales within a mile and a half from college campuses such as Stanford. The stretch of El Camino in southern Palo Alto was a convenient and popular locale for roadside restaurants that wished to avoid strict liquor laws. As old US 101, El Camino was a main road leading from San Francisco to San Jose - and as such, it was a kind of showcase for restaurants vying to fill the stomachs of hungry travelers. ![]() In the years after World War II and well into the 1970s, El Camino Real in Palo Alto was one of those highways. ![]() Back then the roads most travelled were not anonymous Interstates but distinctive state highways, and the landscape was dotted with fancy restaurants, rickety old hot dog stands and occasionally a diamond in the roadside rough. Down South you may find a few more Hardee’s and out here you might see an In-N-Out or two, but a highway lunch is going to pretty much consist of something deep fried and coming through your car window in a white paper bag.īut there was a time when the eating possibilities on the American roadway were an essential part of what it meant to travel, when the array of cuisines and restaurants that each community offered was part of the tapestry of the trip. And with rare exception the choicesdo not stray very far from some combination of Taco Bell, McDonalds, KFC, and the like. Unless you want to forgo making “good time”, your roadside options usually consist of six fast food logos arranged neatly on a blue “Gas Food Lodging” sign. ![]() Set out on any major American highway these days and your choices for lunch are pretty limited.
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