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After 28 years in downtown Menlo Park, Left Bank Brasserie is closing its doors after service ends Tuesday evening.
The 150-seat French restaurant is part of Vine Hospitality, which also operates LB Steak, Meso Modern Mediterranean and Petite Left Bank – all of which announced permanent closures on social media Monday, June 22.
“We are incredibly grateful for every meal shared, every toast raised, and every memory created with us,” the company posted to the Left Bank Brasserie Instagram. “From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being part of the Left Bank family. We will miss you dearly.”
A manager at Left Bank Brasserie Menlo Park, who requested to keep her name private, said she was told of the closure during a meeting Monday morning.
“We didn’t really get much detail,” she said. “People weren’t really asking questions. It was a melancholy call.”
Photo by Marjan Sadoughi.
She said the news was particularly shocking because “they hired a lot of new management recently.” She herself was hired just a few months back, she said.
The Left Bank website still reads that it’s “celebrating 30 years,” noting that its name comes from “Paris’s famous Left Bank along the Seine, a historic hub for artists and creatives.” Left Bank is known for classic French dishes, including escargots, duck liver mousse, steak frites and more. After Tuesday, Bistro Vida, which also opened in 1998, will be the only French restaurant operating in downtown Menlo Park.
Left Bank Brasserie was first founded in Larkspur in 1994 by the late Ed Levine and chef Roland Passot. The restaurant expanded to Menlo Park in 1998, then Santana Row in 2003. The group also owns LB Steak and Meso Modern Mediterranean on Santana Row, as well as LB Steak in San Ramon and Petite Left Bank in Tiburon. An LB Steak restaurant in downtown Menlo Park, at the corner of Santa Cruz Avenue and University Drive, closed in 2018.
Last year, Vine Hospitality closed Italian American restaurant Rollati Ristorante, just two years after opening in downtown San Jose.
Left Bank Brasserie, 635 Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park; 650-473-6543, Instagram: @leftbankbrasserie. Tuesday is its final day of service, open 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
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