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The family that has owned Peninsula breakfast institution Hobee’s Restaurant for 43 years sold the business to two longtime employees, the company announced Tuesday.
Hobee’s, which Paul Taber first opened in Mountain View in 1974, will now be run by Camille and Daniel Chijate, a couple who have each worked at Hobee’s for 28 years. Camille Chijate currently works as vice president and area manager and Daniel Chijate as kitchen manager at Hobee’s in Palo Alto.
There are now five Hobee’s locations, including the one at 4224 El Camino Real in Palo Alto.
The Taber family described the new owners as hard-working, dedicated and passionate about service.
“Though it’s a bittersweet decision, we are heartened to leave the company in familiar, very capable hands,” according to Paul Taber’s children, son Peter Taber, daughter Connie Taber Durant and Edward Fike (Peter’s husband). “There is no better choice to carry on the Hobee’s legacy.”
They said their late father founded Hobee’s at a small site in Mountain View — a former Dairy Belle franchise — with one goal in mind: “to make friends.”
“With his sly sense of humor, Paul Taber indeed made many friends,” the family wrote. “In the process, he also created one of Silicon Valley’s earliest and most enduring success stories.”
Paul Taber initially served sandwiches and fast-food items from the Mountain View location, according to a history posted on Hobee’s website. He soon expanded to an insurance office next door and built a “modest” dining room with only nine tables.
The original restaurant “consistently lost money, severely testing the Tabers’ resolve,” the website states. The family sold their van at one point to make payroll. But a healthy eating craze in the mid-1970s and Hobee’s community-minded service soon led to widespread success, according to the company. Hobee’s now serves sandwiches, salads, tacos, pasta, burgers, smoothies and has a separate gluten-free menu.
The announcement notes the awards Hobee’s has garnered over the years, including “best breakfast” in the Palo Alto Weekly’s Best Of competition.
Hobee’s, known for its ample breakfasts and signature hunks of blueberry coffee cake with a dollop of melting butter on top, can today be found in Belmont, San Jose and Sunnyvale in addition to Palo Alto. A location at the Town & Country Village in Palo Alto closed in 2013. A Los Gatos Hobee’s also closed that year and a Campbell location followed in 2014. (A remaining outpost in Cupertino is an independently owned franchise.)
In an email to the Weekly, Camille Chijate said she is planning some changes for Hobee’s, including continuing a trend toward purchasing locally by featuring local produce, dairy and craft beers. She and her husband will keep “tried and true” menu favorites but also add customer “‘wish list’ items” like grain bowls, cold brew coffee and organic and natural products when possible.
The Chijates also plan to update the restaurants’ dining rooms while still “maintaining our homey, funky vibe,” she said.
Ms. Chijate said she aims “to go more green in our operations, with resources, packaging and day-to-day habits.”
Hobee’s has always been a “family affair,” the Tabers wrote in their Tuesday announcement. Matriarch Mary Taber “cheerfully” processed Hobee’s payroll until she was 82 years old, when she retired and moved to Honolulu — where she had met Paul Taber — before her death in 2014. Paul Taber died at the age of 72 in 1998.
Connie Taber Durant focused on customer service and developed a training program for employees while Peter served as the company’s “chief architect for expansion” and also developed many Hobee’s recipes, including the coffee cake, the family said. Mr. Fike, an attorney, took over as CEO from Peter Taber in 2005 and “skillfully navigated the company through the economic ups and downs of the new millennium.”
As Hobee’s enters a new era of ownership, the Tabers are “thrilled to be keeping Hobee’s in the family,” Mr. Fike wrote in an email announcing the sale.
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Outgoing Hobee’s president Edward Fike and incoming CEO Camille Chijate hold pieces of Hobee’s famous streusel-topped blueberry coffee cake. (Photo courtesy Hobee’s.) -
Hobee’s, which has operated on the Peninsula since 1974, is known for its blueberry coffee cake and community-minded philosophy. (Palo Alto Weekly file photo.)
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To the Taber Family (& the New Owners):
As a regular, frequent diner at Hobee’s (lunch yesterday in Palo Alto, lunch today in San Jose), I want to express my appreciation for your dedication to wholesome food, honest value, and community mindedness (with your regular contributions of coffeecakes to worthy events and your “Kids Eat Free” on Wednesdays). I often hold business meetings and conduct interviews at all your locations, including Belmont and Sunnyvale, and have eaten frequently at the Cupertino restaurant, across from DeAnza college.
Whether it is breakfast, lunch, or dinner, I can always count on the consistency of your offerings and the ability to get anything substituted or put on the side. I love Hobee’s tea and my two boys, both in the late twenties, still remember the “MIckey pancakes.”
Thank you, too, for doing your best to continue the tradition by selling the business to people who have a real chance to do so. I remember the “Good Earth” restaurants from long ago that were sold to General Mills, I believe; that company promised to continue the existing restaurants, but within several years they were all gone, though the retail brand continues.
I wish the Taber family the best of luck in the future and I wish the Chijates success in nurturing the restaurants through the difficult obstacles of the Health Department, the Labor Department, and foody trends. Keep up the good work and I’ll be back as a satisfied customer.
–Chuck Bernstein, 444 Oak Court, Menlo Park
Mystery solved. The Cupertino branch repeatedly disappointed us when we ate there before attending the Foothill Speaker’s series at Flint Center; we finally gave up and stopped going there. We wondered “What happened to Hobees’s?” It sounds like the “real” Hobee’s are still the tasty, fun places we requested decades ago. Glad to hear and best wishes to the new owners.