For about four years, Springline has been a promise. Cranes, then a plaza, then a slow trickle of restaurants opening one at a time. If you live in Menlo Park, you have watched the construction fencing come down in stages and probably wondered when the place would actually feel finished. As of June 11, 2026, it is. Burma Food Group opened the first restaurant at Springline, and on June 11 debuted a new concept at the Menlo Park development, the final addition to a now full list of restaurant tenants.
That single sentence changes the summer more than it might look. A completed restaurant row on El Camino Real and Oak Grove means Menlo Park now has two walkable evening zones instead of one, and it means the weekday rhythm of picking a place for dinner has quietly reset. Here is what actually opened, what to order, and where a Tuesday night might go if you are already home in Menlo Park and hungry.
The Restaurant That Closed The Roster
Alisios sits next to Barebottle Brewing at Springline. It is a contemporary Mexican restaurant and bar from the team behind Burmese restaurants such as Burma Superstar, Burma Love, Teakwood and Kayah, with executive chef Carlos Villegas and sous chef Renee Gomez developing a menu that draws on flavors from Oaxaca and Baja, with many recipes from Villegas' family.
The menu is worth arriving with a plan for. The dry-aged prime flap steak with roasted cactus salsa, mezcal veal reduction, pickled onion petals and corn purée is one of executive chef Carlos Villegas' favorite dishes at $41.75. The queso fundido features melted Oaxaca quesillo, squash blossom, grilled chorizo and huitlacoche at $17.75. For the bar, ask for the elote old fashioned. Villegas' favorite cocktail on the menu is the elote old fashioned, made from grilled corn-infused bourbon, corn liqueur and bitters at $18, and he has said it is one of the best things he has tried.
If you have a nondrinking guest, that has been solved too. Beyond cocktails, Alisios offers Mexican beer on tap, Mexican wines from Valle de Guadalupe and Parras Valley, whiskey, tequila and mezcal flights, plus nonalcoholic margaritas, horchata, jamaica, Mexican Coke and Sprite, fresh-squeezed juices and cafe de olla.
The Springline Lineup, In One Place
Alisios is the last piece. The rest of the roster is what makes the walk from the parking garage to a table feel more like downtown San Francisco than the Menlo Park most residents grew up with:
- Causwells. Opened in spring 2026 in the former Canteen space. The 50-seat art deco-style restaurant features peacock-print wallpaper, sage green velvet chairs, and brushed gold hardware, as well as a garage roll-up style wall that opens to seat an additional 60 outdoors. The menu is about 75% new from the San Francisco original, and chef-owner Adam Rosenblum's culinary perspective is influenced by his classical French training and time cooking in New Orleans. Two picks to start with: the housemade ricotta with rosemary honey, olive oil and lavash at $15, and the American Burger with house recipe ground beef, American cheese, lacto-fermented pickle, onion, lettuce and Causwells sauce on a sesame seed bun at $24.
- Che Fico Parco Menlo. Brought house-made pastas, wood-fired pizzas, and a 400-bottle wine list from its original NoPa home, alongside a neighboring Mercato with prepared foods and a walk-up gelato window.
- Burma Love. A contemporary sibling of Burma Superstar, with the tea leaf salad Bay Area diners have always driven to find.
- Barebottle Brewing Co. Arrived from SF and Santa Clara with couches, pinball machines, a cozy parlor behind a mosaic-tiled bar, and a vintage beer truck in the outdoor plaza; it remains Menlo Park's only brewery.
- Andytown Coffee Roasters and Proper Food for the morning and midday end of the day.
- Robin. The Menlo Park outpost of the San Francisco omakase room.
Springline's practical effect on a resident's week is not "one more restaurant." It is that a weeknight decision now includes a full second downtown, one that opens onto a plaza instead of a sidewalk.
The Story Downtown Is Not Just Springline
The gravitational pull of a finished Springline could make the rest of downtown feel quieter. It has not. Two of the more interesting summer arrivals sit outside the development.
Shiok! Singapore Kitchen is back. After being forced out of its longtime Menlo Park home last year, Shiok! Singapore Kitchen has found its way back, reopening in a new space on Oak Grove Avenue with the same kitchen staff dishing up the same family recipes. Since 1999, Shiok! served traditional Singaporean dishes out of its space at 1137 Chestnut St., a restaurant started by co-owner Dennis Lim's sister, who moved from Singapore after marrying an American and began cooking the food she grew up with for friends at home before opening a small restaurant in San Carlos; when it outgrew that space after only six months, she and their mother moved the business to Menlo Park. The hours to know: open in the new location Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for lunch and 5 to 8 p.m. for dinner Tuesday through Sunday.
There is a small subplot in the return worth pausing on. Just down the street, the former Chestnut Street building where Shiok! once operated sits boarded up, and Lim has wondered why it is vacant, noting that neighboring businesses with decades-long tenures were also kicked out. If you have walked past those darkened storefronts wondering what happened, that is the answer.
The other arrival is on Santa Cruz Avenue. Yeobo, Darling opened at 827 Santa Cruz Ave in Menlo Park; in Korean the word yeobo is a term of endearment that translates to honey or sweetheart, and the name honors the past and embraces the present as the term is often used by parents or grandparents. Chefs Meichih and Michael Kim have received acclaim for their Michelin-starred restaurant Maum in Palo Alto and street-fare inspired Bao Bei in Los Altos, and Yeobo, Darling draws from Meichih's Taiwanese and Michael's Korean roots.
For a fuller upmarket dinner, there is also Eylan, which arrived January 15 at 500 El Camino Real inside The Villa complex at Stanford's Middle Plaza development, from chef Srijith Gopinathan, whose Ettan in Palo Alto earned a Michelin star and whose Copra in San Francisco continues to operate; the menu is built around a wood-fired grill and the full geographic breadth of Indian cuisine rather than a single regional tradition.
A Weeknight Or A Saturday, Sketched Out
A rough map of how the summer actually breaks down for someone who already lives here:
| If your evening looks like… | A good move |
|---|---|
| Post-work drink, no plan | Barebottle's outdoor plaza with the vintage beer truck |
| Weeknight dinner with visiting parents | Che Fico Parco for pasta, gelato from the walk-up window on the way out |
| Anniversary or celebration | Robin omakase, or Eylan on El Camino |
| A long, slow Friday | Alisios, sit at the bar, order the elote old fashioned |
| Comfort-food Sunday | Shiok! for dinner, 5 to 8 p.m. |
| Michelin-caliber date night | Yeobo, Darling on Santa Cruz Ave |
Two logistics that come up more often than they should. First, the Springline garage is not intuitive on a first visit. The garage is open daily from 7:00 AM to midnight, parking is not assigned, the first 2 hours are free and then $3 per hour with a $20 daily max and $20 overnight fee, and validation is available when dining at a restaurant on property. Bring the ticket into the restaurant. Second, the plaza itself is a programmed space this summer, not just a passageway. Public events on the calendar include The Big Summer Paw-ty on August 9, 2026, a Barre3 Pop-Up Fitness Class on August 23, and a Corepower Pop-Up Fitness Class on September 6. Outside Springline, the City of Menlo Park's Summer Concert Series brings live outdoor music with a variety of musical styles including R&B, classic rock, Latin blues, southern soul, disco and pop, billed as family fun for all.
What Is Actually Different Now
The line worth holding onto is one that Alisios' bar director offered on opening day. "It's funny because we were the first one, and now we are the last one," said Humberto Galeano, bar director at Burma Food Group. That sentence closes a chapter that started years ago with promises about a mixed-use campus. What replaced the promise is a working evening district with a full slate of tenants, a plaza calendar, and a parking policy. For anyone who has lived in Menlo Park long enough to remember what Chestnut Street looked like before the boards went up, that is a real shift in the shape of the town, not just its menu.
If you find yourself needing to talk through what all of this means for a home in this part of the Peninsula, whether you are staying put, thinking about a downsize closer to downtown, or coming back after time away, Lynn North would be glad to help. Schedule a free consultation and home valuation whenever the timing feels right.