Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Melissa Greanias, manager of the new Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza in Westgate Shopping Center, pulls a chicken fajita pizza from the oven.

New Willow Street is slice off the old pizza

By Suzanne Cristallo

They ran out of high chairs and crayons when they opened Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza in Westgate Shopping Center last August--a fact that says a lot about the crowd the new restaurant attracts.

The fifth Willow Street restaurant San Josean Ed Rathmann has opened since his first in San Jose's Willow Glen in 1991, the Westgate store is "more of a family place" with customers arriving and leaving earlier, while the Los Gatos branch is "more of a date place," says Melissa Greanias, manager of the newest location.

Rathmann owned Eulipia restaurant in downtown San Jose for 15 years before starting the Willow Street group, which now includes restaurants in San Rafael and San Francisco.

Each restaurant has its own character and decor, as well as its own type of ownership. Some are part of a corporation, while others, like the Los Gatos branch, are owned by partners Rathmann and Glen Thompson.

Recalling the summer of 1994 as possibly the turning point for the success of the restaurants, Greanias credits the Brazilian soccer team with helping put the Los Gatos restaurant "on the map." Team members lodged in Los Gatos while they competed for and eventually won the World Soccer title.

Greanias, 26 and a native of Los Gatos, waited tables there while she studied sociology at San Jose State University. She recalls the chaos the team brought with them when they came to enjoy the patio on warm summer evenings. The group accompanying them grew each night, along with the crowd squeezing into the place as word of the team's presence spread. "We did a month's sales in one week," she says with a laugh.

Greanias spent five years with Willow Street until she earned her master's degree. After a brief recess from the business, she re-entered it when she was offered the management position at the new Westgate restaurant. The restaurant business happens to be part of her family culture as well. Her grandfather founded a string of diners in Chicago, and her mother, Joyce Astle, owned the Tea Garden in the 1960s--a Los Gatos restaurant that occupied the spot now taken by Steamer's.

"It's more than a pizza place," Greanias says of Willow Street. "We already have lots of regulars."

She claims the unique pizzas the restaurant offers, such as the Thai chicken pizza, as well as the pastas, salads and roasted chicken, keep the customers coming back. She recommends the "wonderfully sweet" and tart taste of the rotisserie-cooked chicken with grilled peppers and onions steeped in balsamic sauce with roasted red potatoes.

The "wood-fired" pizza to which the restaurant name refers is baked using oak wood that is burned on the floor of clay ovens, then scraped to the side. Greanias, who shares the management of 40 "front of the house" employees with Miranda Weaver, points to the friendly atmosphere of her restaurant as an added reason for its popularity. Murals by San Jose artist Reed Winfrey depict local scenes of orchards and animals--more specifically, founder Ed Rathmann's West Highland terrier, Wallace, whose whimsical face stares out at diners.

Willow Street Wood Fired Pizza, 1554 Saratoga Ave., Westgate Shopping Center, San Jose. Open Sun.-Thu., 11:30 a.m.- 10 p.m., Fri. and Sat., 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. 871-0400.

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