Photograph by Robert Scheer
If you're looking for owner Nick Pries, you'll find him behind the grill at Paul's Family Restaurant.
By MIKE DE GIVE
There's a long list of official institutions in Cupertino--City Hall, Quinlan Center and Blackberry Farm, to name a few.
But if an unofficial list were ever compiled, Paul's Family Restaurant would surely be somewhere near the top.
Paul's first lit up its Cupertino grill in 1979, when the last of the city's orchards still had a presence on De Anza Boulevard. Since then, the restaurant has built and maintained a loyal following. Longtime residents, new faces and civic activists all find their way to the coffee shop at one time or another.
"I've had congressmen eat here," said co-owner Nick Pries, slicing through a hot-off-the-grill steak, a specialty of the house. "Probably half the City Council's been here at one time or another. It's a great place to meet a lot of good people."
Nick and his two brothers, George and Paul, emigrated from Greece in 1969 and found work in a San Jose restaurant owned by relatives. Nick was 13 at the time, and started out as a busboy. A year later, he graduated to dishwasher.
"About 15, I went into the kitchen and started learning. I was 17 when we opened the other Paul's on Winchester [Boulevard]," said Pries, recalling the brothers' original coffee shop, since closed. "When we first opened the restaurant, we had to draw straws to see whose name would go on the sign."
Paul's opens its doors every day of the week, starting with breakfast at 7 a.m. Nick and George are regulars behind the grill (although his name is still on the sign, Paul is no longer in the business). The brothers' wives and kids also work at the restaurant from time to time. And some workers have been there so long, they might as well be family.
"I have very loyal employees," Pries said. "I've got three waitresses that have been here almost as long as we've been open."
Breakfast specials--of the bacon, egg and pancake variety--start at less than $3 on weekdays. Dinners of steak, seafood and pasta start at $8.95. The lunch menu includes the whole range of coffee-shop fare, cooked up personally by the owners.
"At a lot of franchise places, the manager doesn't cook. The manager manages. Here, we're hands on people--we don't just wear ties. That's one of the reasons we've survived so long."
Paul's Family Restaurant, 10700 S. De Anza Blvd. Open daily, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, February 12, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.