ROUND TABLES PHONE NUMBER CODE

That year, he demolished the original Round Table - a sad old waterworks building with an even sadder “PIZZA PARLO” sign out front (a building inspector made them remove the ‘R’ and replace it with an additional exhaust fan). But even after selling, he couldn’t walk away from the business entirely - Bill almost immediately bought back both the first-ever location and the land it still sits on today. “I borrowed $2,500 from a bank and a finance firm with my furniture put up as collateral to open our first store in Menlo Park in 1959,” Bill once told the San Francisco Examiner (the furniture in question was actually Bill’s parents’, and they had no idea he was using it as collateral).īy the time he sold controlling interest in the corporation in the late '70s, Round Table had more than 100 locations. Navy, drove trucks for Coca-Cola, managed a Safeway and opened Round Table despite less than a year of pizza-making experience - to thank for it. If you grew up in California in the '80s or '90s, you very likely spent a good chunk of your formative years scarfing down pizza and slamming quarters into a Golden Axe arcade cabinet in the back of a Round Table Pizza after a Little League game.Īnd you have Bill Larson - a high school dropout who served in the U.S. Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEīob’s father Bill founded Round Table Pizza in 1959 at this still-open location in Menlo Park, before franchising Round Tables across California beginning in 1962 - growing from one to more than 500 at the time of his passing in 2006. In a photo from the 1970s Round Table Pizza founder Bill Larson poses for a photo inside at the original Round Table Pizza restaurant in Menlo Park. The “it” that would be gone forever is the memory of Bill Larson - his best friend, his best man, his dad. Or even the first-ever Round Table Pizza. “I'm sorry if I sell it, it's gone forever.”Īfter an entire morning spent with Bob going over old photo albums and reminiscing about his family’s long history with Round Table, I eventually realize he isn’t talking about the land.

ROUND TABLES PHONE NUMBER CODE

This plot - Bob’s plot - is located just a mile from the most expensive ZIP code in America, and has been a lightning rod for multimillion-dollar overtures from local developers.

He’s talking about the funky, L-shaped Bay Area lot that houses the 3,800-square-foot Round Table we’re seated in, along with 42 parking spaces and a Sotheby’s office.

The interior of the original Round Table Pizza restaurant in Menlo Park, Calif., on Nov.

Round tables phone number