Mike’s Cafe

The waiters and waitresses are so friendly and make you feel welcome. The food is amazing although is a little pricey. I go here time and time again and I am never disappointed. The ambiance is lacking but that hasn’t stopped me from going. Highly recommend the greek pasta, the chicken chipotle sandwich, and their sweet potato fries. This place is a MUST.

Gourmet food freshly prepared in American/​semi Italian style and served in an old Palo Alto building. Price is relatively cheap… in tall tree (Palo Alto).
Better than downtown where you spend 30 mins to find parking, sit next to techies talking about venture idea/​Tesla so loud that you want to leave and pay 2x at Cheesecake Factory eating similar food. Not relaxing at all.
Here in Mike Café, the ambiance is relaxed with family atmosphere, park at the back of the private Café parking. Not bad, right? It is a hidden jewel in Palo Alto. Best part, if you live in mid town, is the walk.
PS: Bathroom is a little small due to the age of the building, not too 55+ friendly.

Absolutely love love love their food. Family owned welcoming atmosphere, everyone is wonderful and so friendly to say the least.

good food, not expensive, nice friendly neighborhood place to get a simple well prepared meal and glass of wine

My wife and three kids were there earlier today for brunch.
After 15 minutes on the table the staff did not even gave them a menu. Even after asking two different people for one. Some people showed up after them and were served coffee and the waiters took their order.
She was tired of waiting and went to the Palo Alto Breakfast House where it was quite full and I just joined them for brunch. We will never patronize that spot again. I sincerely hope the manager reads about this.

Come here fairly often with my Dad for lunch and the food is good — highly recommend the mushroom melt! The service is very friendly and fast — they remember us and always make us feel welcome.

Dissapointment. They have the restaurant set up like a nice place with a full bar but the food is marginal. $ 7 dinner salad…$ 14 tortellini pasta was just horrible. My girlfriend had the tomato soup which tasted like Campbell’s. We thought we’d try a new place in the neighborhood and this place missed the mark.

The service was horrible and the food was bland. I went there for brunch and decided to have some breakfast and boy was that a mistake! I ordered a simple scrambled eggs and sausage. The egg was over cooked and cold, the sausage was to sweet and just gross and dry. If they can’t make something simple I can only imagine what the other stuff taste like. I would recommend driving the extra mile to downtown Palo Alto for brunch. You’ll have a better experience I promise!

Dirty place where there are dirty rags and bus boys do not wash their hands between busing and serving tables.

I stopped by for Sunday brunch after Core Studios kicked my a**. We had tried to go to Pancake House, but the wait was pretty long and we were hungry. There was no wait at Mike’s.
I was really pleased to see the Mike’s Breakfast on the menu that came with pancakes, sausage AND bacon, eggs, and breakfast potatoes. Many times, I want to get something sweet and savory for breakfast, but the basic breakfasts only come with toast, eggs, meat, and potatoes, no choice of something sweet like a pancake or waffle. What I was less pleased with was that the amount of food was the taste of the food. The pancakes were cooked on a griddle that was too hot, as they were riddled with holes. They were chewy and overcooked and also came topped with copious amounts of powdered sugar, which looked pretty. But I’m not a fan of too much sweetness, especially when there is butter and and maple syrup to be added. The scrambled eggs were fine. The sausage was overcooked as well, with a completely burned bottom. I got one slice of bacon that looked to be thick-​cut, but was really dry. The potatoes were Yukon gold fingerlings that had been slightly mashed and topped with cayenne pepper. They were okay. Everything was just okay, but nothing to write home about. For the $ 11 I paid, I would prefer to go to a place with bigger portions and/​or better tasting/​more memorable food. This was comparable to something I would expect at Denny’s. It looks like the people waiting at Pancake House knew what they were doing.
Service was pretty good though, as my water glass was filled numerous times by the bussers. But the server never stopped by to ask about our meal between dropping off the food and dropping off the check. One thing I found really strange about the setup is that there is a bar area adjacent to the dining area and two large and prominently displayed flat screen tv’s, not something you’d expect to see at a nice, sit-​down restaurant.

Tuna melt ts and mushroom melt are ok
Grown up grilled cheese is good. Apples add a bit of freshness and crunch to the sandwich, could use more cheese though!
Garlic fries are better than the regular fries.

Terrible. Went with a group of 5 for breakfast and every person managed to be deeply disappointed in some way.
Cappuccino tasted like cardboard. Coffee was burned. Potatoes were «weird» and unappetizing (how do you mess up breakfast potatoes?). There were pieces of smoked salmon in a fruit bowl. The huevos rancheros were ok but small for a $ 10 dish. The salmon Benedict was too salty. At the end, they charged us more for the cappuccino than was listed on the menu.
For the price, you could get delicious meals in downtown Palo Alto a few miles away instead of the deeply unsatisfying experience here.
Will not return.

This was our 4^th time eating here, which was two too many. The food never impressed me but is close to our home. The service has always been ok to good but this time the service was not good and the food was no better then the frozen food that I would be forced to eat in college during all night study sessions. The Lasagna was bland and sloppy. My kids ordered burgers and they were worse then a local fast food establishment. My wife ordered the Caesar Salad that was no better than you would expect from grocery store bagged ready to go. To me this place has been on a downward slide over the past year. The prices just don’t justify the food being served.

My parents used to go to the Menlo Park location with me when they would visit from Chicago. Shrimp salad and Niçoise salad were killer, but most importantly the staff was incredible kept us coming back weekly.
Fast forward, my Dad passed and Mikes closed all in the same year. Mom moved to California and we’ve been to the PA location. Poor service and so so… What happened!
We thought we’d give it a shot again the other night because we used to be regulars as we live close to this place, we pulled into the parking lot at 4:52. Believe it or not the guy looked at me and looked at the clock and said…“we open in 10 minutes“
Need I say more.

Had lunch here the other day. It was decent. Prices were high for what I got.

Okay Neighborhood Hangout…
Pros: Good food. Small town atmosphere.
Cons: Understaffed. Restrooms outside. Too heavy on the dairy (is Mike a farmer?)
Suggestion: If you order eggplant parmagiana, ask them to «hold the parmagiana»
Star Ratings:
— Overall: 3
— Food Quality: 3
— Food Quantity: 3
— Dining Room Attractiveness: 3
— Menu: 4
— Service: 3
— Noise: 3
— Price: 4
— Value: 4
— Parking: 4
— Restrooms: 2
— Ambiance: 3
My wife and I, along with 2 other couples, decided to have dinner at Mike’s on an early Sunday evening in advance of seeing a nearby movie. Why Mike’s? One of the couples tried it a few times before attending shows at the Lucie Stern Theater and had a good experience.
— Dining Room: From the outside, you’d either drive by or never go in. It’s not exactly attractive. However, the interior is cozy and warm with colorful touches. That, plus a good size bar well stocked with a variety of wine reminded me the menu at Mike’s leans toward Italian.
— Food: It depends. My Eggplant Parmagiana was nicely done, except it was smothered in a tomato cream sauce… very heavy on the cream. There was more dairy on that eggplant than my breakfast of cereal and milk. I could almost hear a cow in every bite. In fact, my stomach was talking to that cow for a couple of days.
However, 4 of the other 5 people, including my wife, had Petrale Sole and thought it was fine.
Before the entrée arrive, I had a Wedge Salad with blue cheese dressing. A nice chunk of iceberg lettuce and 4 slices of tomato were swimming (perhaps the breast stroke?) in a sea of white. I like blue cheese as much as anyone, but Mike’s can trim its costs and save patrons a run to the restroom by easing up on the dressing.
Baskets with 2 types of bread accompanied the meal. One was unremarkable dry sourdough, but the other was warm, literally melt-​in-​your-​mouth rolls with a hint of garlic. It was great and helped to soften the blow, pun intended, of the dairy ingredients for a somewhat lactose sensitive person.
— Menu: An Italian version of Californian. A fairly extensive mix of lighter dishes you’d find in a restaurant with so-​called «California cuisine» and more traditional Italian names. Nobody in our group had difficulty finding things they wanted to order.
— Liquor List: Small. Although the bar was lined with wine bottles, there’s got to be a lot of duplication. The actual list was quite limited, but as usual, you don’t need a hundred selections when 20 well-​chosen choices are offered.
— Price and Value: Quite reasonable for the area. For 2 salads, 2 entrees, a glass of wine and pint of draft beer, we paid $ 65 before the tip.
— Service: Very good (when we got it). Mike’s was (is?) understaffed. About 10 tables with a total of 30 – 40 people were occupied during most of our meal… yet I only saw one server. Granted, he had a couple of assistants, but was still running around juggling more balls than a circus clown. For example, when the bread ran out, he promised to get more. After 15 minutes, I asked one of the assistants for some. He promised to split the bill into 2 parts, but it arrived with everything on one slip of paper. Mike — Give the guy some help!
— Parking: Okay parking on the side, around the back and along the street.
— Restrooms: I was tempted to go (actually, quite badly), but they’re literally outside the restaurant with an entrance by the parking lot. So I skipped it and waited until we got to the movies.
Mike’s seems to be a place with lots of regulars from the neighborhood. If you carefully choose your food and aren’t in a hurry, you’ll probably be rewarded with a good experience.

I’ve enjoyed Mike’s for the past 15 years, and it is my go-​to lunch place in the Palo Alto area. The service is prompt and the food is delicious. On this visit, I saw they had a turkey-​cranberry sandwich with cream cheese. I asked them to put on a little mayo in lieu of the cream cheese, and the substitution was no problem. Their fries, which I don’t usually eat anywhere, are so good I can’t turn them down.
If I could make a couple of suggestions for Mike’s, I would suggest they work on a way to dampen the sound, because it can get pretty noisy in there. I also know it’s important to be able to seat as many people as possible, but I feel like the tables are a bit close together.

A-​OK for a family meal out. We took the kids here and had a decent and easy dinner. The kids had the grilled cheese w/​fries and the pasta w/​butter. We added a fruit cup which was surprisingly huge and packed full of great fruits. I had the ravioli while my bf had his usual– chicken parmesan. They have a really nice house pinot and at the end of the night, everyone was satisfied. I agree with most reviews. Locals, families and seniors on their date nights (cuute!!). However, I love the family feel to it.

Trendy brunch spot in the midst of midtown Paly
Fee Fi Fo Fum… gimme brunch. Quaint café with a nice trendy atmosphere conveniently located with little parking.
No line on a Saturday at 12:30pm…not bad!
Ordered:
Smoked Salmon Benedict — english muffin with a slab of smoked salmon topped with eggs. Side of fruit and potatoes included. $ 12
The smoked salmon eggs: delish
The potatoes: not so much
The service was OK… I had to ask for my side of ketchup and mayo one too many times.
Recommend for the main D and as a decent brunch spot in the South Bay.

Cute neighborhood bistro, unexpectedly good food.
I swear by the Adult Grilled Cheese with sharp cheddar, thick-​cut bacon, apple slices and dijon mustard. It’s pretty much amazing; the perfect balance of kid comfort food, made for an adult palate. This is a quaint place that’s just right for a business casual lunch.
Service is great and the staff seem genuinely happy.