Lou’s Coffee Shop

This is my favorite place to eat. On Sunday’s my cheat day I go for my ultimate favorite The San Francisco burger. My other favorite the banana walnut coconut waffle. Truly recommended.

We have been going to Lou’s for years. The service is great, there is always a table (at least when we go), and the food is outstanding! I had their corned beef hash is delectable. Today, we decided to try a place across town that has been there forever, and we were so disgusted we walked out. We came here, and again, were not disappointed.
I would say the only suggestion I have is to do something about the errant flies that get in when the door is opened. This has not had a problem to date, and today we had a swatting contest trying to shoo one that came in.

I love this place! My friend and I had the best breakfast here. The portions are huge, customer service is great (the servers are so friendly) and the food is very, very good! You will not leave hungry! This place is always packed on the weekends, so come early. I had such a wonderful dining experience here, I can’t wait to come back.

First of all, absolutely 4 stars for the food, ingredients, selections, and quality! This place has earned the spot of my favorite breakfast place other than Bobbie’s. We tried the George scramble and vegetarian crêpe. The portions are generous, and both tasted absolutely delicious. The portion is so large that most people probably have to take it to go some of it. The menu is also impressive in that they have a variety of breakfast items including crêpe, scramble, omelette, benedict etc.
However, the service level is really subpar here. Everything you ask for will be quite slow, whether it is the bill or the to-​go-​box. The waitress had an expressionless and unwelcoming face as well. If this place would amp up their service level a bit, I would be willing to give this place a fair 4 star. Lastly, this place is CASH-​ONLY, so it is slightly inconvenient. For the food however, I would say it would still be worthy for a visit as you would enjoy the food quite a bit! Enjoy!

They have survived and thrived for decades. I go for the price, portion size,& friendly staff.

Small little diner. Excellent service. Great spicy Bloody Mary with bacon. Crabs egg Benedict yummy. Crispy crab cakes atop toasted muffin with avocado, poached eggs and lemony hollandaise sauce. Comes with a huge portion of crispy hash browns. Yummmmmm! Will eat here again.

This place is a small hidden gem. Most of the locals know about it. I never leave disappointed if anything I always leave overly stuffed worth the generous portions! The staff is always super friendly and very professional. It’s a super small location but worth the wait if you come on a Sunday morning. Dad and I came on wed morning so there was no line at all and we were free to sit wherever.

Great food, great quality, great service = repeat business! My wife and I came here after a friend had mentioned it a week ago while at another local café.
The portions were large, so be sure to go on an empty stomach. Food was prepared quickly even though a full house, and they were fresh!
Extremely friendly atmosphere and great employees, great value for what you get!
Thank you for the wonderful food! We will be coming back very soon. :)

A good breakfast place. All American breakfast is served with huge portions.
The food is good and was served up quickly even though every table was taken.
Small place with limited parking. Easy to miss if you blink while your driving by.

It’s a small restaurant with a big appeal. This eatery is my best friend’s favorite breakfast place, and it never disappoints her. She especially likes the fresh, homemade taste — from the orange juice to the hash browns. I wholeheartedly agree. Their menu is packed with goodness.
They are very busy on Saturday though. We were immediately seated and tended to, but we had to flag down service afterwards. I suggest you go after 2 p.m. when they slow down.

Been wanting to come here for a while as we pass it often. We finally stopped in and what a treat! What were we waiting for!!! A quain, mom and pop style coffee shop with the best coffee and 70’s décor, including old school cash register. The kind waiters along with the fabulous home cooking makes this place a contender for regular diners. No credit or debit cards accepted… cash only but they have an ATM Machine located right inside that charges $ 1.99 fee. The pancakes were dense and garnished with yummy fresh fruit. This was perfect!

Two words: Buckwheat pancakes. And open at 6 am!
They are almost impossible to find anymore and Lou’s has them!
Perfect fluffy/​chewy disks of goodness. Comes with some fruit garnish and a little dusting of powdered sugar.
A short stack will set you back a little under $ 7. With coffee: $ 9.75.
I really wanted to plow through the whole menu but when I saw the pancakes, everything went blank.
I hadn’t been here for about 25 years and, aside from some trendy light fixtures, the place is exactly the same!
Cash only.

Always great food, really tasty coffee. Not overly greasy like some other breakfast places.

Hands down the best breakfast spot in the South Bay! Love the triple bacon Benedict and Spiro too!

This place was more then welcoming. Alex took care of us and made sure everything was okay. The food, way more then I can eat. Definitely coming back

I love Lou’s! Thier food is awesome, huge portions, friendly staff.
Be aware though they only take cash, which is a bummer. Other than that, highly recommend it!

I’m a sucker for family owned businesses — and this right here is a family owned business. The staff here are so friendly and customer oriented. The brunch smell lingered upon walking in. I order a ham and pineapple omelette which had a Hawaiian flare to it. I will be back for more!
A couple of side notes — they only accept cash & the parking lot is tiny!

One of the best places to get breakfast! I love their strawberry waffle, a Belgian waffle loaded with strawberries, whipped cream, and butter on the side. Their fries are to die for! They’re like In N Out fries, but bigger and better. Can’t wait to come have breakfast here next time!

Wish there was a 6 star option. Service was friendly and fast. Slight wait for table of for 6 on New Year’s Day. Mimosas and Bloody Mary’s where amazing while we waited. Food portions are HUGE, enough for breakfast for dinner ! Food was delicious and was brought tour fast and fresh. I am so hooked on on banana coconut waffle and the crispy thick bacon. We love it so much my husband and I were back for breakfast the next day. Still dreaming about their bacon!

another hidden gem!
I think we cleared out all there champagne with the bottomless mimosas :)
Service and Food was Superb.
Also please note, they only take cash!

One of the worst breakfast experiences I’ve had in a long time honestly. I ordered a breakfast scramble with salsa on the side, took two bites and pushed the plate away.
The chicken was SO overdone/​dry it tasted old and like it had been re-​heated. I even had another person try it and they the exact same thing before I said it. My salsa on the side never came at all either. The ‘fresh avocado slices’ from the menu were instead replaced with mushy guacamole without telling me. Even if it had been good guac they only gave me a tiny spoonful, not even enough for the entire plate. Also they added jalapeño slices, which I can’t eat and weren’t on the menu description for the plate.
My iced tea was warm too. I mean the name itself implies it’s supposed to be served cold. I took one sip and left it. I took two bites of the plate and left it. The person I dined with was also unimpressed with their eggs benedict, and said the only good part was the bread and bacon.
Only reason it’s getting two stars instead of one is because the workers are very nice and helped us out with the bill (and I’m a sucker for the small café atmosphere). But now I need to go to a 2^nd location to actually eat, and would have preferred saving the time/​energy & just gotten good food here.
All the great reviews lead me to believe I’m the one in a hundred who gets a bad meal, so take it as you will as well. May give it a second chance at some point, we will see.

Best breakfast in the South Bay!
This is just a good old-​fashioned diner that does it the right way. But, the reason to pass up all of the other joints in town and eat here is the hollandaise sauce on the Eggs Benedict. Good hollandaise sauce is very difficult to get right in the first place, and Lou’s manages to do that and then make it stand out from the others. I crave it!
It would be great if they took credit cards, but the ATM in the corner suffices.

There is not enough stars to show how satisfy we are!
we were heading to another breakfast place we passed by here & saw ppl waiting at the door, it got our attention, we went to the other place which we read good reviews on Unilocal as we entered the place was almost empty & didnt have kind of breakfast we were looking for!
My hubby said lets go to that place & sooooo happy we did.
The smell of foods, the cleanness of the place & friendliness of staff was just the starters the food I just can say absolutely delish!
I am hooked!

True neighborhood gem! The server was ready and greeted us with a smile! My fiancées Reuben Sandwich was so juicy and it was served with plenty of French fries. The meat on my taco salad had so much flavor. Every thing is home made. Everyone here is so nice. Love this place. Oh their breakfasts are amazing too.

The best Little place to have breakfast brunch and drinks I absolutely love this place it’s a must try friendly staff Big portions it’s always a great experience!

A local place with friendly staff. The food is done with care and it is always warm. I enjoy this place and I look forward to come back.

Small, clean and very pleasant. My daughter and I love sitting at the small counter. My husband and I love sitting at the tables. The walls are painted like you’re in a library.
Service is fast and pleasant.
And the food is why you want to keep going back. I’m in love with their clam chowder… it’s a lovely smokey bacony clammy potatoey goodness. I also enjoy their tomato, ham and cheese sandwiches. The fries are plentiful, perfectly seasoned, crunch on the outside and creamy on the inside. Husband loves egg benedicts and they poach them lightly so they’re’ runny. He’s a happy man. Daughter loves french toast. The portions are large and I’m always bringing half home for «second breakfast.»
REMEMBER: It’s CASH ONLY. They do have an ATM there if you forget.

Seriously a great hidden gem for a small breakfast joint in Los Gatos. Cash only.
Service was quick, staff is friendly & efficient. the food was delicious. I’m definitely gonna share this gem with my love ones.
What did we ordered? Chicken cordon blue omelette, and Monte Cristo.

Lou’s Coffee Shop has existed on my Unilocal Bookmarks list for what feels like a decade in foodie years. I finally got the opportunity to grab some brunch with my man and his family when his grandpa came out for a quick weekend visit.
Once I spotted the Corned Beef Hash Florentine Benedict, my order was pretty much set in stone. The rest of the family ordered up some pancakes, waffles w/​a side of bacon and a huge scramble and a side of biscuits and gravy. Normally I’m not actually a fan of «real» corned beef and prefer the spammy pink kind you get out of a can (gross, I know), but Lou’s got the texture and flavor just right and it might have been the best Corned Beef I’ve ever eaten.
As far as ambiance goes, Lou’s screams diner, which is a good thing. Right in the center of the bar is a very cool, very old timey cash register which they still use (ca$h only!)

How to get a food coma:
Step 1: Eat at Lou’s
Step 2: Enter food coma
I’ve never crashed so hard after a great meal as I did after eating at Lou’s. Lou’s is a really cute breakfast/​brunch place that is often packed on weekends. We showed up around ~11am on a Saturday and were lucky to beat the brunch rush.
Our waitress was very attentive and seated us immediately, in addition to checking up on us many times. One thing she pointed out to us were the specials of the day, which all sounded amazing. We ended up getting the apple sausage omelette and the apricot banana french toast. When the food came out, I could barely believe how large the portions were! I thought ~10+$ was a little steep for breakfast, but when I saw the amount of food there was on the plate, I immediately understood.
The apple sausage omelette was extremely tender and the egg was cooked perfectly– no knife needed to eat it, we just needed our forks! It was a ginormous omelette layered sausage, mushrooms, and more. There was melted cheddar cheese and huge slices of avocado on top– super savory. The hash browns were pretty good as well. Pretty much average.
As for the apricot banana french toast, there were thick slabs of toast smothered in apricot marmalade and banana slices. The french toast was drizzled with a little bit of caramel as well. The french toast was honestly just a perfect concoction of sweet and tangy from the marmalade. There was maple syrup and butter, but the toast was pretty much perfect by itself. ¹⁰⁄₁₀ would order this again.
PARKING: There’s a small private lot but on weekends in can get pretty packed. There’s also parking in the neighborhood that’s on the same block.
TL;DR:
Food: portions are ginormous. Get ready to share. Highly recommend apricot banana french toast/​specials of the day
Price: $$ — but the portions are huge so it’s definitely worth it.
Service: ⁵⁄₅

I’m a 3 ½ here but rounding up because I love local businesses. ;)
I got the corned beef hash with the biscuit and gravy on the side. I asked for no peppers in the hash, and apparently that’s a difficult request to honor. The biscuit and gravy came up first, while they remade the hash — and I was told that in the future, they can’t do the hash without the peppers. I am so disappointed by that… but the hash I did get was delicious. Huge chunks of corned beef, but also huge chunks of corned beef fat, so watch what you put on your fork. The portion was UNBELIEVABLE large, and I had a huge amount left for a very generous lunch the next day. Service was fine. I’m being generous with the four stars, especially if I won’t be able to get pepper-​free hash again in the future, but I love small little coffee shops like this and want to see them in business!

I can’t wait to come back here again.
Their crab benny, man! The Unilocalers before me were right – that crab benny is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I met up with an old college friend here on a calm Monday morning before work, and we were practically the only ones under 40 years old here! It was so refreshing to see a local diner focused solely on the food and the quality morning service.
The small joint is located in the middle of nowhere important in Los Gatos, but it’s easy to miss if you’re driving too fast. It’s right after you get to the gas station once you’re off of 17. ANYWAYS, the parking area is small and very tight, so be careful when you’re parking.
The coffee shop is warm, old-​fashioned, and surprisingly ordinary! The only thing I’d change about this place is possibly installing some windows that OPEN to the fresh air outside. It’s nice and warm sitting inside the coffeeshop, but it seems like the only source of ventilation is the front entrance door. I’d love to have some fresh air (even when I visited during winter time), but I can imagine that it can get stifling in summer time.
The food is delicious, and the pricing is bomb considering you’re in Los Gatos. It’s not as crazy and long-​lined as LG Café in downtown LG, but Lou’s deserves just as much lovin’. I’d say this place is just as good as LG Café too!