The Cool Cafe

I like the idea of this place — local, organic, fresh, seasonal, blah blah blah– but the portion sizes are way, way too small, especially for the prices. I ordered the seasonal butternut salad, which was listed as a main for 12 $. It consisted of half a cup of spinach (barely), 8 small pieces of squash, a couple of chunks of feta cheese, about three pieces of paper-​thin-​sliced apple, and a sprinkle of onion. Oh, and two small pieces of bread. Last I checked, those bags of organic spinach at Trader Joe’s are 2 $ and a serving size is half a bag — not sure how Cool Café came up with half a cup as a realistic amount of greens for a full-​size salad. I’m a 100 pound, petite woman — if I was starving 2 hours later, then something is *seriously* wrong with the portion sizes. For the same price, you can get a huge salad at a similarly fresh/​seasonal/​healthy salad place in downtown Palo Alto (like Pluto or Sprout) — and Palo Alto isn’t exactly known for cheap food. Do better, Cool Café!

This place was decent. It offers salads, sandwiches, and soup with an artisanal taste. I got the ½ sandwich and soup combo. Today’s flavors were chicken curry sandwich and shiitake mushroom soup. I got an Arnold Palmer that didn’t taste right. Kind of overpriced, but hey it’s a museum restaurant.

Nice little café in the Cantor Arts Center. Good food, very convienent. The menu has vegan and vegetarian selections. I had a delicious vegi salad with tofu. It was very nice. Sandwiches looked good too. Overall recommend.

Excellent quality lunch on a sunny afternoon. A great outside space for the kids to run and play-​an asset for all parents who want to enjoy their lunch.

Cool Café coffee spills. The top of the cups don’t seal. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad coffee. Just don’t plan on walking anywhere with it.
I hope my rating is fine for such a piddling comment. Just thought the world wide Unilocal should know.

Cool Café is cool. Cool café is fun. They have good food. Every time I visit Stanford for a museum exhibition or a play, the Cool Café is there to feed me.
I have had some great meals here. Once they had a cream of mushroom soup. It inspired me to make my own creamy mushroom soup at home. Luckily I had been to a baby shower recently where we had to taste blended baby foods and try to guess the flavors, I didn’t do so well at guessing the baby foods but i learned a lot of things, for example how to guess ingredients of a creamed soup. I made it at home and I think it came out pretty well. But I digress.
The cool café has cool staff and tasty food. It is not the cheapest but also not the most expensive. Slightly more expensive than other college cafes but i guess this is Stanford and you have to expect that kind of thing.
I wouldn’t come here for food alone, but anytime I am at Stanford I come by and try it. They change menu frequently which is nice if you’re a regular.
Also the outdoor seating is nice. You can sip your beer or wine and eat sandwich while looking at some cool Rodin sculptures in the museum garden.

A large group of us walked over for a Saturday lunch. The long line moved amazingly fast. I got a roast pork sandwich ($ 11 + tax), and I liked it. The sandwich was fairly small, but it came with a tasty salad (which was also small). The accompanying photo shows what the plate looked like. The sandwich was a little expensive for what was served. A larger, or cheaper, sandwich would have triggered a fourth star.
As others have said, the setting is magnificent. One can sit outdoors for much of the year; the view of the sculpture garden is uplifting. The presence of a museum, basically in the next room, is also a big plus. The Cool personnel were efficient and friendly.
We now come to the espresso portion of this review. Two of us got back in line to order double espressos ($ 3 each). The ground coffee used to make the espresso was seriously stale. Further, the pour was too long, so that the coffee was over-​extracted and a bit thin. All we could do was add some milk. That was enough to save the day for me, though my companion in this activity felt that his cup of espresso required half-​and-​half for the resuscitation.

I stopped at Cool Café at the Cantor Arts Center for a late lunch after a meeting in the area to enjoy the sunshine on their outdoor patio. There is currently construction going on right next to the café, but once that’s gone it will be better.
I ordered a Cobb salad at the counter. At $ 14.00 I was thinking it was really pricey! They gave me a number, and I sat at an umbrella table on the patio. I was surprised when the salad arrived at my table. The salad was presented beautifully. All of the components of this salad melded together so deliciously — fresh mesclun greens tossed with honey mustard vinaigrette, layered with thick, crisp pieces of bacon, sliced avocado, beet cubes and Point Reyes blue cheese chunks. Nice portion of chicken flavored with a tasty marinade was arranged next to the salad. The salad came with a two pieces of French bread.
I’ve had my share of Cobb salads over the years and this has to be one of the best. Although it place was pricey, I absolutely think it’s worth the money to get locally sourced, organic food in a beautiful setting. The museum is open until 8 pm on Thursdays, so that means the café is open until 7:30 pm that day. Great for a nice meal and date at the museum.

The sandwich bread was so old and dry I had to ask for mayonnaise just to digest it. They made no offer to replace the dish or try new bread. I asked to speak to a manager and there was no one on site. The head waitress scolded me for not insisting on bettering the meal vs asking for mayonnaise. The attitude was very much we don’t care about your issues and there is no one here who cares. It’s sad I’ve been coming here for years for work meetings with colleagues but no more!

My husband and I are long time fans of the Cool Café and looked forward to having lunch there today prior to touring the Cantor Center. It has been one of our favorites even when we don’t go in tothe museum.
Though I went in with the intent of ordering the grass fed burger (which my husband did) the Diestel Turkey Sandwich on Cranberry Bread with Cheddar and Avocado caught my eye and that’s what I ordered. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. The sandwich was dry, and there was more flavor in the cranberries in the bread than in all the other ingredients combined. To add insult to injury, the sticky scoop of flavorless quinoa added zlich to my dining experience. Thankfully, a bite of my husband’s pretty good burger made me feel a little better. He, too, received the flavorless quinoa scoop. At $ 10 and $ 12 dollars respectively, these sandwiches were underwhelming. With one bag of chips and 2 non-​alcoholic beverages, our lunch was $ 31. A tad pricey for mediocrity, especially when one has to stand in line to order.
I’d hate to think that Jesse Cool is resting on her fine reputation and letting quality slip at this gem of a location

The spinach soup is amazing! Really great texture and amazing scenery for a study /​hangout with a friend.
Just wished they could connect with the customers. However the staff are very polite none the less.

Just a typical American lunch place. Nothing special. Sandwich, drinks, just those kinds.

Before you come to eat here, you should take a moment to reflect, like the Rodin sculptures scattered about who are all thinking, «Why? Why eat here in spite of all these Unilocal reviews saying it’s overpriced and bland?» You should consider this too.
It still gets 3 stars from me because it does nothing wrong at all so there’s nothing to deduct from an average rating.
As I had my Arnold Palmer and panini, I realized this might be one of the most forgettable meals I’ve experienced in a while. But the fact that I’m dwelling on it now means it somehow stuck quite vividly in my mind.
This is a clever achievement. So maybe in a way the Cool Café is art, a veritable extension of the museum itself.

Great outdoor place to sit and get some tan. $ 2.44 for a cup of coffee. Free parking in Lot A on the weekends. Overall great café outdoor place to sit.

This little gem is located at the Stanford art museum and was great for lunch! I was surprised by how fresh everything tasted and how quickly our food came out. I had the half sandwich and salad combo for around $ 10. The chicken curry sandwich was yummy and the salad and dressing was fresh and delicious. Parking is kind of a pain, but once you find a spot, this little place is well worth it! They give you a number, and you take that to your table (inside or outside seating available). Can’t wait to go back and try another item off the lunch menu. Museum is also free to go through, and I hear it is great.

Nice café by the free art museum at Stanford University. The Rodin Garden, the trees, the outdoor patio tables, and the indoor table area all make this a unique experience. Its within about a 10 minute walk from both the Quad area on Stanford University as well as Stanford Medical Center. So its a great place to go if either part of Stanford or just visiting for the day.
The food is good — albeit sandwiches are priced a bit higher than other sandwich shops. They are good though, but priced higher — I guess its because of the surroundings. Staff is friendly. So if at Stanford and in this area ok to go to — but I would not go out of my way if just looking for a good sandwich shop.

KINDA COOL CAFE
(3.25 stars)
Headless statues with missing limbs and dangling penises while enjoying a cup of soup.
* FOOD, ok
* PRICE, kinda out there
* SERVICE, good
* AMBIANCE, campus café
Decided to venture around and enjoy lunch in a not so expected place to have lunch on a Saturday afternoon in the summer. The Cool Café is located near the FIne Arts building — expect to see some art. I thought it would be «cool» to have lunch with art at a «cool» café. Well, today’s art was interesting. Not sure if I like eating my soup and looking at these sculptures. LOL
HEFFER-​STYLE STATUS.
CORN AND RED BELL PEPPER SOUP ($ 6.50) — comes with two pieces of bread. Okay, it sure hells doesn’t sound so good. However, it actually was pretty good. I was thinking a cream soup with corn and bell pepper when ordering but when it was served… it wasn’t even like that. It was all pureed. The texture was smooth and the color was light orange (yellow + red = orange). And it tasted very good and healthy. I’m just not sure if it was worth $ 6.50. Alot of the items on the menu were kind of pricy for a café on campus, don’t they know STUDENTS ARE BROKE?! I’ve discovered other places to eat on campus that were half the price of the items at this café.
Will I be back? Maybe.
Until the next review…

I’ve been told that this is the best place to eat on Stanford’s campus. Unfortunately, that’s true only of «good food» or «reasonable prices» aren’t your highest values. The food is pretty good if substantially overpriced. My asparagus with green goddess dressing was $ 11. A salad with actual protein was several dollars more, and none of these salads are large. And the asparagus itself didn’t knock my socks off.
But if things like «charm» are your highest value, I can see why you’d come here. There’s a lovely, quiet, patio overlooking the art museum’s sculpture garden. You can stare absently at the Rodins (although they are a little too far away to get a really good look at them), soak up a little sun, and remember why you moved to California. Those are lovely ways to pass an afternoon, even if I wouldn’t normally mix them with an overpriced asparagus lunch.

All organic, local and sustainable ingredients. WINnING!!!
this is a wonderfully hidden gem on the Farm. i’m going to surprise my DH with a lunch date. we’ll check out the museum first, find the Thinker, then head over to the COOL café for a chillaxing lunch on the patio, alls the while admiring the statues of rodin. i might even have to wear my fancy sunglasses and make like a tourist in europe ;)
had the cobb salad which is artfully presented.
love love love
5 stars all the way!

Cool Café is one of Jesse Ziff Cool’s restaurants and she strives to serve only fresh, in-​season, organic and local ingredients. Cool Café overlooks the Rodin sculpture garden on Stanford campus, and is a wonderful place to be on a sunny day. There is outside seating and picnic tables on the lawn.
While we were visiting the Cantor Art Museum, we stopped by the café for lunch. Prices are slightly higher, but you’re paying for premium ingredients. I ordered the grilled chicken sandwich which had: chicken, bacon, lettuce, avocado and chipotle mayo. The chicken was flavorful and juicy. The sandwich was a good size and just enough for lunch.
We saw a lot of families while we were there; seems like a great place to have some lunch and relax while you’re visiting the Stanford campus or art museum.