Photograph by Tsutomu Fujita

That's Amore: William Lima is the assistant kitchen manager at Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza in Willow Glen, which recently was remodeled.




Renovated Willow Street will celebrate its 10 years

By Jim Aquino

Some customers at Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza in Willow Glen got a bit of an early Halloween shock last month when they learned the 10-year-old restaurant would be temporarily closing on Oct. 15 due to remodeling.

But now, after less than a month of reconstruction work, Willow Street is back in business--it reopened with an initially quiet but ultimately busy first night Nov. 2, according to general manager Shannon Gzsanka--and it's not just the restaurant's exterior and interior that have been revamped.

"The menu has been slightly revised," says Ed Rathmann, who co-owns Willow Street with Miguel Romero and Glenn Thompson. "We'll still have everybody's favorites on there."

Big sellers like the barbecued-chicken pizza and the Hawaiian pizza, a favorite with kids, will remain on the menu, which is supervised by executive chefs Adolfo Perez and David Cohen. But the menu--which Gzsanka says she appreciates because it has always offered more than just pizza and pasta--will also experience such changes as the permanent addition of dishes that Willow Street first introduced as specials over the summer to test customers' responses.

"By popular demand, we're bringing back the salmon penne--Atlantic salmon with capers, dill and roasted-garlic sauce," Rathmann says. "We also are putting back on the menu the chicken taco salad with black beans, avocado, tomatoes, cheddar cheese and tortilla chips, which we ran over the summer as a special and was really popular."

Also new to the menu are grilled salmon with pesto sauce served on a bed of tabbouli with sautéed spinach, lemon chicken served on a bed of fusilli and a calzone stuffed with goat cheese and wild mushrooms.

"We haven't had a calzone on the menu for quite a long time. This is really good," Rathmann says. "You can get it with rotisserie chicken or bacon if you want."

November also marks the addition of "Family Days" on Tuesdays. Kids who are accompanied by an adult can eat for free off the child's menu, which includes a kid's hamburger and a fusilli plate.

Other Willow Street locations in Los Gatos and the Westgate area have experienced building revamps as well. But those were minor compared to the Willow Street facelift last month, which, according to Rathmann, was needed after 10 years of very few changes.

Much of the kitchen equipment had deteriorated over the years, including the stoves and one of the two pizza ovens, which have now been replaced.

"We have a whole new cooking hood over the cooking light, and that's a big deal to change that," Rathmann says. "You have to shut down for a significant period of time to get that replaced."

Other refurbished parts of Willow Street's brick building include the patio by the entrance and the bathrooms in the lobby and the bar.

Rathmann says the remodeling, which had been planned for more than a year and took nearly three weeks to complete, went extremely well.

Next up for the original Willow Street is a 10th anniversary celebration in December that Rathmann prefers to keep mum about. In the meantime, business for Willow Street is as solid as it was before its temporary closing.

"It's been pretty normal," Gzsanka says. "I have to say normal is good in these times."

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Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza, 1072 Willow St., is open Sunday-Thursday 11:30a.m.-10p.m. and Friday-Saturday 11:30a.m.-11p.m. For more information, call 408.971.7080.

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