Saratoga News Photograph by George Sakkestad Art Oberg points out the large oak tree standing near the Live Oak Kitchen, which he owns with his wife, Annie. Friendly folks, hearty food staples at Live Oak Kitchen By Suzanne Cristallo "We're a neighborhood store," says Art Oberg, describing his Live Oak Kitchen on Union Avenue in Los Gatos. "Teachers come here after school; folks stop off before shopping at Safeway; relatives of tenants at the convalescent hospital come for take-out. Actually, we're the place people seem to come to before going somewhere else and where they stop when they return." Oberg and his wife, Annie, have owned the restaurant for the past year and a half, buying what for the past 24 years has been a landmark for East Los Gatans. The restaurant is part of the Downing Center, which houses Safeway and several other shops. The Live Oak Kitchen was sold to the Obergs by Duane Downing, whose family built the place in 1974. Downing now devotes all his time to managing the shopping center. Sunday morning is the busiest time of the week for the Obergs and their staff of 13. The tables are jammed with regulars who come for the three-egg omelets, the biscuits and gravy or the famous Dutch Babies--German pancakes, shaped into a bowl and filled with fresh fruit and whipped cream or yogurt. The Live Oak is a place filled with the aroma of hamburgers and pizza, liver and bacon, Cajun chicken and meatloaf. On Friday and Saturday, it's prime rib--eight ounces for $8.95. Every day of the week, the linguini Florentine vies with rib-eye steaks and pork chops for popularity. But it's the people who make the place. "I have 92-year-old customers who want to be my oldest customers, but there are 93-year-olds who beat them," Oberg says with a chuckle. A Spokane, Wash. native who came to UC-Berkeley to study public health, Oberg, 62, never entered the field of his degree. Instead, he spent 28 years in the restaurant business and has lots of tales to tell about the folks who have warmed up his establishments--six places in all. Some he managed, most he owned. There was a cowboy cafe in Oakdale, a Sambo's, a Carroll's, a J. Winfield's and a J.J.'s Diner in Oakland--the famous round building at 27th and Broadway that sported phones in every booth and an occasional sports celebrity. The threat of a wrecker's ball caused Oberg to sell his interest and buy Live Oak, but not before 13,000 petitioners brought the planned demolition to the limbo state where it exists today. Oberg has seen it all over the years: 18-hour power outages; plumbing backed up in the kitchen; Visa machines that refuse to give up paper--occurrences that don't get handled if the boss isn't there. "If you don't look after business, you won't make it," he says, explaining why he or Annie is present every hour the restaurant is open, seven days a week. "The secret of success is to have very few employees on the job when it's slow and lots when it's fast," he says. Live Oak Kitchen, 15531 Union Ave., Los Gatos. Open for lunch and dinner Mon. 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Tue.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday 3-8 p.m. Breakfast is served every day, 7 a.m.-3 p.m. 741-1784. [ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Saratoga News, December 9, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.