One Building on Main Street Is the Best Preview of Downtown Los Gatos Dining This Fall

If you've walked North Santa Cruz Avenue this summer, the storefronts have felt like they're changing faster than usual. A quieter version of the same story just played out two blocks over, inside a single building, and it tells you more about where Los Gatos dining is actually headed than any new-openings list could.

The building is the La Cañada Building, one of the most recognizable structures in the Los Gatos Historic Commercial District. Its upstairs space sat empty for nearly seven years after Los Gatos Bar & Grill, a nightclub and restaurant known locally as LGBG, closed. Downstairs, Polenteria has anchored the corner for years. Within the past year, three new tenants have moved into that same building, and the reason isn't outside money discovering a wealthy suburb. It's closer to the opposite.

The Building's Turnover, and Why the Names Matter

Here's what's happened inside the La Cañada Building over roughly the last twelve months:

• Summer 2025: Petals Creamery opened on the ground floor.
• Late 2025: Second Story opened in the same building.
• Spring 2026: Heritage Pub and Chop House opened upstairs, in the long-vacant former LGBG space, from owners Walker and Kristi Pearce-Percy.
• The whole time: Polenteria has kept running downstairs, under Executive Chef Yvonne Khananis, who also now runs the kitchen for Heritage Pub upstairs.

Three new tenants in one historic building within about a year is not typical turnover. It's a building that a specific kind of operator has decided is worth betting on.

Walker Pearce-Percy graduated from Los Gatos High School in the class of '97. He became a commercial pilot for United Airlines and now flies C-5s as an Air Force Reserve pilot out of Travis Air Force Base. He also sits on the board of the Veterans Memorial & Support Foundation, which is working to place a Flame of Liberty Memorial in town. Kristi is a Los Gatos native too. Nearly a decade ago she was approached about using the space for her architecture firm, Cuschieri Horton Architects. That plan didn't happen, but it eventually led to the idea of a restaurant with her friend Yvonne Khananis, the chef already running the kitchen one floor below.

"There's a lot of history in this space, and our goal is to celebrate the history," Kristi says.

There's history worth celebrating. The space was originally the meeting house for the Odd Fellows Lodge, a community service group that met there in the early 1800s. A remodel that began in August 2024 turned the interior into what's now Heritage Pub and Chop House, complete with heritage walls and space for customers to display items reflecting the town's own vintage aesthetic. Fish and chips, shepherd's pie, bangers and mash, and corned beef and cabbage share the menu with American classics, and between the banquet room, back patio, and a game hall with arcade machines and shuffleboard, the space holds 180 people.

This is the part a generic restaurant roundup would skip. The Pearce-Percys aren't a concept group testing a market. They're two people who grew up here, buying into the building that already anchors their own downtown, and putting a chef who already runs the kitchen downstairs in charge of both floors.

The Same Pattern Is Showing Up Down the Block

A few doors down, the former Sidecar Modern Tavern space at 25 E. Main St. is becoming a Greek-Anatolian restaurant from chef Coskun Abik, whose lease began last August. Abik has spent his career building Bay Area restaurants with staying power, including Blind Butcher SF in the Castro, which earned him a Certificate of Honor from San Francisco's mayor, along with Dunya Bistro and Moka Coffee SF. As of this spring, construction was still underway and no opening date had been announced. He describes the new menu as lighter than the Mediterranean flavors already on the block, built around Maraş pepper, oregano, and olive oil rather than the bolder profile of Arabic cuisine. "This might be similar, but the flavors are totally different," is how he put it, calling his restaurant the second Mediterranean-focused spot to open on this stretch of downtown, after Dar Restaurant and Bar opened in spring 2026.

Dar's owners, brothers Milad and chef Esam Shaqir, already had a proven concept one town over in Saratoga before expanding to Los Gatos with a menu drawing from the Levant, Italy, and Morocco, a full bar, and a patio with a fireplace. That's a team betting that regulars who already trust them in Saratoga will cross the hill to a new address.

Further along North Santa Cruz Avenue, more of the same pattern is queued up. Vicinity, a fine-dining concept first reported by the Mercury News in January 2026, is preparing to join a downtown that already has Forbes Mill Steakhouse and the champagne-and-caviar pairings at Tasting House on Village Lane. Pergamon Bistro, a Turkish concept from owner Seyyat Zira, has an alcohol license application filed and is planned for 309 N. Santa Cruz Avenue, near Oak & Rye and Pedro's, though no opening date has been set.

None of these are chains speculating on a suburb they read about in a market report. They're operators who already built a following one town, one block, or one floor away, now betting that following will follow them.

What This Means for Your Next Walk Downtown

If your Sunday morning already runs through the farmers market at Town Plaza, nothing about that changes. The market still runs its usual 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. window, rain or shine, with the same produce stalls, crepes, and rotating food vendors it's had for years. Purple Onion Café, on Main Street by the Los Gatos Creek Trail entrance, still handles the coffee-and-pastry rush right after the market lets out. Southern Kitchen still pulls a weekend line for brunch despite taking no reservations.

What's changing is what happens after that, in the hours you'd otherwise spend deciding where to go for dinner. PintxoPote, the Spanish tapas bar at 424 North Santa Cruz Avenue across from the Downtown Los Gatos sign, has owned the longer evening hour built for shared plates and a glass of sangria. Now it has company arriving from both directions: Heritage Pub two blocks over for a pint and a plate of fish and chips, Abik's Greek-Anatolian spot for something lighter, Dar for a fuller Mediterranean spread with a fireplace patio. The corridor between Main Street and Village Lane, already dense with the Wine Cellar and Gardenia in the evening-out category, is filling gaps that used to send people driving to San Jose or Campbell for variety.

That's the real story this fall. It isn't a longer list of restaurant names. It's a downtown where the operators filling the last few vacant storefronts already have a track record in this specific market, which makes these openings more likely to still be here in three years than a concept restaurant chasing a trend would be. The La Cañada Building's own history makes the case. It sat empty for the better part of seven years because nobody with the right mix of capital and local commitment wanted it. Then three tenants wanted it within about a year. That's not a coincidence. It's what happens when the people filling a building already know the town they're filling it in.

Next time you're deciding where to eat on a Sunday, look at who's behind the lease, not just what's on the menu. It tells you more about whether a place will still be there next year.

For a longer look at how downtown living compares to the hillside side of town, David Kim Group has a guide to both. And if you're ever curious what a home near this stretch of North Santa Cruz Avenue is actually worth, our Los Gatos neighborhood page is a good place to start, or you can schedule a consultation directly with our team.