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While Google’s humble garage beginning is Menlo Park’s most famous startup story, fewer people know that the city is also the birthplace of Round Table Pizza. The original outpost of the nationwide pizza chain has remained a fixture of the community for more than six decades, and up until last fall, it was run by Bob Larson, the son of founder Bill Larson.
Bob Larson never thought that he would retire from the pizza business, but after cutting and rolling millions of pizzas, he has developed tendonitis in both arms. Once his granddaughter was born, he decided that it was time to take a step back from the Round Table that he grew up at.
“I’ve been doing this for 40 years … and I’m grateful that I’ll be able to retire as a pizzaman,” Bob Larson said.
As the original Round Table location changes hands, the Menlo Park Historical Association is honoring the long-standing pizzeria with a commemorative plaque. For Bob, who is deeply proud of the legacy that his father created, the tribute is a reminder of his family’s deep roots in the community.
“It’s the second-oldest (business) in Menlo Park, which I never thought it would be,” he said. “It’s important to recognize those businesses and hopefully keep them as community gathering places.”
Humble beginnings
In 1959, Bill Larson, a 26-year-old Palo Alto High School dropout who had served in the U.S. Navy and worked as a cheese delivery man, set out to carve his own path in the pizza business. With just a $2,500 bank loan — secured using his parents’ furniture as collateral — he opened the doors to Round Table Pizza on Dec. 21, 1959, in the old California Water Service building at 1235 El Camino Real.
At the time, he had less than a year of pizza-making experience under his belt. The pizzeria’s original slogan, “share a little pizza with someone you love,” captured Bill Larson’s vision for the pizza joint: He wanted to create a place that wasn’t just about great pizza, but also about the experience and community that could be found in sharing a meal.
“This was a gathering place,” Bob Larson said. “This was my dad. His whole idea was to create a fun place where people could gather and get together. We didn’t have the internet or anything — this was your version of the internet.”
Bob Larson has been archiving the pizza chain’s history in memory of his dad, who he says was his “best friend.” As guests walk into the pizzeria, they’re greeted by a shrine of sorts — an homage to Round Table’s origins — that the younger Larson set up at the front of the restaurant.
There’s an oil portrait of Bill Larson, dozens of newspaper clippings chronicling the rise of the pizza chain, hand-carved wooden posts from the original 1959 location, a miniature replica of the original Round Table building and one of the round redwood tables for which the pizzeria was originally named.
Scattered throughout the building are other nods to the chain’s history. “I still have all the photos and everything of the construction of this building,” Bob Larson said.
The original Round Table location was bare bones. The sign outside the dilapidated California Water Service building read “Pizza Parlo” because a health inspector made Bill Larson remove the “R” to make room for a required kitchen fan.
When the elder Larson sold his controlling share in the Round Table corporation in 1978, he quickly bought back the original Menlo Park location, tore down the old building and built a new custom home for the pizzeria one door down. He custom built the unique, Danish Tudor-style building that now houses the restaurant — a landmark on El Camino Real for nearly 50 years.
‘The last honest pizza‘
There are now more than 400 Round Table Pizza locations throughout the United States, but the restaurants still use many of Bill Larson’s original recipes.
Bill Larson was first exposed to pizza not in Italy, as one might expect, but rather in Japan when he was serving in the Navy, according to an account of the restaurant’s founding in the Menlo Park Historical Association’s newsletter. He honed his pizza-making skills at Hambone’s Parlor and Olde British Pub in San Mateo before setting out on his own.
Round Table’s early menus humorously referenced Bill Larson’s Japanese pizza origins, stating that Round Table could be found “just south of the Park Theater and just 10,000 miles west of Tokyo, Japan.”
The original menu featured pizzas such as Bill’s Special, Italian sausage, Menlo Supreme, and Louisiana shrimp. Prices ranged from 96 cents for a plain cheese pizza to $3.17 for a “giant” Bill’s Special pizza.
Today’s Round Table menu features Arthurian-themed pizzas such as King Arthur’s Supreme, Guinevere’s Garden Delight and Montague’s All Meat Marvel, alongside other classics like their take on a Hawaiian pizza with ham, pineapple and Polynesian sauce, called the Maui Zaui. You can get a personal cheese pizza from the Menlo Park location starting at $11.99. An extra large King Arthur’s Supreme costs $41.99.
Bob Larson says that the Round Table brand continues his dad’s legacy of fresh ingredients — all Round Table franchises still roll out their own dough, chop their own vegetables and top the pizza with Bill’s proprietary blend of mozzarella, provolone and aged cheddar. The brand’s slogan in the ‘80s and ‘90s was “the last honest pizza,” referencing the wholesome ingredients used to make the pies.
Though Bob Larson’s 40 years rolling out pizza mean a lot to him, he is most proud of the fact that his restaurant remains a “throwback” — that it is still a place where Peninsula residents can grab a slice of pizza with someone they love.
“When people come in here and see that I’ve got 3,300 square feet, video games, a banquet room, yeah it’s a throwback, because spaces like this don’t exist anymore,” he said. “We’re all being crowded out now. You’re getting the mini concept with 40 seats outside or whatever.”
A lot has changed since the pizzeria’s founding in 1959, and Bob Larson said he gets goosebumps thinking about just how alive and vibrant the Menlo Park Round Table was on a Friday night in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when local parents and their kids would come down to the pizzeria following long weeks of work and school.
“We partied together, we worked together … everyone wanted to be a part of it,” he recalled. “It was a blast down here.”
Bob Larson began working at Round Table when he was 12, and other than a brief few months as a 17-year-old when he was fired by his father, he’s worked there ever since. Up until his retirement, you could still find Bob behind the Round Table counter or answering the phone for the restaurant whenever he was needed at the restaurant.
He said that over the years, developers have offered him millions of dollars for the parcel that Round Table sits on, but he has always turned them down. When he finally decided to sell the business last year, he said he didn’t “sell out.”
“I could have done many things with the property, but it was my kids who really did not want me to change anything,” Bob Larson said. “That was all the incentive that I needed.”
He sold the pizza business, but not the property, and said he gave the new owner Karan Bal a “very agreeable, below-market-rate lease” on the condition that the location remain a Round Table for at least the next 20 years.
“I’ll continue to be its landlord,” he said. “This is an old building, it takes a lot to run. So I’m still going to have a presence here. Not on the other side of the counter, but I still like the fact that I’m connected.”
Round Table, 1225 El Camino Real, Menlo Park; 650-321-6861, Instagram: @roundtablepizza. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
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Having worked for Bill while they were headquartered on Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto during the late 70’s, during their re-branding campaign, I found him to be one of the most kind and generous people I’ve ever met. Bob was just the same, so no wonder they were “best friends”. I wish Bob a happy retirement, loads of fun with the grandkids, and more memories down the road. I’m so glad he’s keeping the property on which his father built this lasting legacy!
Did you happen to ask him what he thinks of the updated “Pizza Royalty” slogan for the brand?