I've decided that restaurants around here benefit from being near other restaurants. Downtown Redwood City AND Palo Alto both enable potential diners to stroll along the sidewalk, read menus, check out the vibe & pricing, and see if they like the crowd. Then, if there's a table open - terrific! If not, on to the next one ... !!! Milagro sends you a text when you're table is ready ...

Chantilly ran 43 years in the location, before closing this year (to customer dismay in comments): Web Link Other "destination" restaurants around the region (especially if they have Michelin stars) stand by themselves, I'm thinking of examples and they are pretty much special-occasion places anyway, less practical for spur-of-the-moment eating choices. I think Charles's point is good for many restaurants, but from the description above (even first paragraph), this experienced firm aims to make another stand-alone, "occasion" venue.

"Special focus on premium steak" brings to mind two implications: more-traditionalistic diners than those favoring Baumé or Chez TJ (steakhouses thrive in other parts of the country where things like Asian cuisines, seafood, and "fusions" are less common), and power business meals. Just hoping the wine list shows range and novelty, and not just a corresponding "special focus on" heavy and cult California cabernets (compare Forbes Mill steakhouse in Los Gatos), or, even worse, one of those turn-key, everything-offered-by-Southern-W&S tourist-restaurant lists that, when combined with 20k (or is it 30?) of advertising expenditure at The Wine Spectator, reliably secure that magazine's "coveted" wine-list awards.

Reality check; "Chantilly ran 43 years in the location" is not true, they were in downtown PA for most of my lifetime, and I'm 54 years young

Thanks for the correction on that detail, though it doesn't really speak to the situation I mentioned. However many of its 43 years were elsewhere, Chantilly still occupied that Redwood City space for a LONG time and stayed in business there, which was my point (and separates places like it from the dense dining streets Charles Reilly mentioned). Like the Village Pub (about 30 years, counting original incarnation pre-Bacchus), Chez TJ (35 years I think), La Foret (39 years), 231 Ellsworth in San Mateo for many years, French Laundry in Yountville (23 years), Berkeley's Chez Panisse (46 years). These are different styles of restaurants, but all are special-occasion, expensive, destination places that get critical praise from out-of-town media like the Michelin Guide which is what this new business's owners say they plan. These restaurants all did good business despite standing apart, not in dense restaurant streets that we have in several peninsula towns, mine included, with many adjacent options for pedestrians to stroll past and choose, spur-of-the-moment. (Chez TJ is and 231 was near such restaurant areas, but not part of them, you would not pass their doors if you strolled past the other restaurants.)

I wonder what this future restaurant's impact will be on John Bentley's?

Question about Bentley's is addressed by today's new post: Web Link

(Apparent answer: no impact, since the closure of Bentley's had already long been in the works.)

Moreover, the John Bentley's location is not slated to be another restaurant. It is destined to become a senior living complex which will not compete with this new steakhouse.

Best of luck to this new steakhouse's operators and best wishes to John Bentley in his retirement.