TGI Fridays at Vallco was busier than usual.

Kevin McClelland, general manager of the restaurant, said business was twice the volume of a typical Monday.

"We benefited from Christmas being on a Sunday," he said.

On a normal Monday, the restaurant brings in between $7,000 and $8,000. On Dec. 26, the eatery raked in $15,000.

Across the street at Alexander's Steakhouse it was a different story.

Manager Dan Sousanis said the upscale restaurant had half the business it normally sees on a Monday.

A lot of Alexander's lunchtime business comes from high-tech neighbor Hewlett-Packard, which shut down its Cupertino campus between the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

Alexander's Steakhouse evening business was relatively unaffected, Sousanis said.

Alexander's caters to its high-tech business clientele, reminding diners via a menu posted outside the front door that a high-priced meal can be charged to an expense account.

Other nearby restaurants, delis and coffee houses noticed the change in sales due to two holiday weekends and several office buildings closing between the holidays.

Starbucks at Cupertino Village, which normally has coffee drinkers lining up for lattes, had no more than three people in line at a time.

The Starbucks is located directly across the street from Hewlett-Packard.

Noah's Bagels at De Anza and Steven's Creek Boulevard said business was slow all week.

Manager Saleh Alkhatib said he planned for the slowdown by cutting back on his staff during the week.

Armadillo Willy's Barbecue on De Anza, and neighbor Pebbles DeliCafe, were looking at near-empty tables all week. Armadillo Willy's employees normally park in the parking garage attached to Portal Software but couldn't because it was locked. Portal employees weren't using the garage, and they weren't eating at the restaurants.

Down the road from Armadillo Willy's, Apple Computer parking lots had few cars and even fewer people making their way to Armadillo Willy's, according to manager Joe Eckenrode.

Eckenrode said the restaurant enjoys the steady business it gets from Apple.

"We love Apple," he said. "It's not like we get just one or two people from Apple. We get 40 or 50."

The Elephant Bar restaurant on Stevens Creek Blvd. could have cared less what businesses had given employees the week off because all afternoon a steady stream of customers was being seated.

The difference, managers there said, was in the amount of time diners took to eat.

"The table turn time definitely went up," said manager Ronda Ajlouni. She said people normally occupy a table for about 45 minutes. During the holiday week people were taking their time and sitting for an hour and 20 minutes on average.