Palo Alto is a charming combination of small-town accessibility and urban ambience. Outdoor cafes, tiny coffee shops, bookstores, mom-and-pop specialty shops, national chains, art galleries, two movie theaters and numerous restaurants attract shoppers, eaters and entertainment-seekers of all ages. Palo Alto is home to some of the best restaurants in the Bay Area, in many cases rivaling the best restaurants in San Francisco. It is a favorite dinner spot for locals living throughout Silicon Valley and visiting tourists and business people from around the world.

Most of the best restaurants are relatively small and independent, and without reservations you can expect to wait up to an hour or longer, especially on weekends.

Visitors looking for familiar but quality food will find lots to choose from. Chains including The Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen, P.F. Chang's, Max's Opera Cafe, Il Fornaio, Gordon Biersch and Buca di Beppo all have Palo Alto locations.

Restaurants are the focal point for nightlife in Palo Alto, and it's not uncommon for them to still be seating customers at 10 or 11 o'clock on weekends. A popular bar scene consisting of mostly non-local young professionals and some Stanford students keeps downtown Palo Alto going until after 1 a.m. A few restaurants and bars feature live music or DJs.

The Palo Alto Caltrain station lies at the intersection of University Avenue and Alma Street. Baby Bullets, Limiteds, and Locals stop here. These trains are fast, safe, comfortable, and cheap. Adjacent to the train station is the bus transit center, served by Santa Clara County’s VTA and San Mateo County’s SamTrans systems. During the workday it is also served by the Dumbarton Express, which runs from the Union City BART station to Palo Alto and Stanford Industrial Park. 

General Bay Area transit information can be found at www.511.org.