Downtown Palo Alto: Paris Baguette

Paris Baguette is a Korean bakery chain with a Parisian cafe theme. For the US branch, there are locations in California, Georgia, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. I visited the Palo Alto location in Northern California. This location is in downtown, which is very quaint and high class. The store hours are 7 AM to 10 PM from Sunday to Thursday and 7 AM to 11 PM on Friday and Saturday. I came at 11 AM in the middle of the week and nearly every table was occupied with many people of various ages and nationalities. The only other location I visited was in Koreatown LA, which only had middle aged Korean women at that time I visited, so I was so surprised this time.

The interior is very classy and glamorous, matching its nice location. Walking into the bakery, the first half is for sitting, with a long communo table in the middle, bench seating to the left and table sitting to the right. The deeper half of the bakery is where all the products are.

In this second half, the walls are lined with shelves of goodies, and there is a middle island with pre-made sandwiches and pastries as well. There is a sign indicating to start on the right side, where there are tongs hanging and trays and tissue ready to be grabbed.

Moving along the right wall, there are a few pastries. Then in section 1, there are also gift sets, boxes of truffle chocolates, and jams. In section 2, there are loaves of hard bread (like baguettes but more round) for roughtly $2. And lastly, in section 3, there are fridged items such as brand name drinks and Paris Baguette's own pudding.

On the top layer of the middle island, there are many bagged pastries and cookies that are ready to go. There was also a sample of green tea flavored dorayaki, which was very sanitary with toothpicks already poked in to each piece and a used cup to dispose of the toothpicks.

The bottom layer of this middle island had trays of beautifully crafted, fresh pastries. All of these need the tongs to grab them.

Along the left wall were gorgeous cakes on display. Above was a fresh menu with a soup of the day (one size), hot sandwiches and four baguette pizza options. The backboard also had an extensive beverage menu. You would order all of these at the cash register and pick up at the end of the counter.

The soup of the day was chicken with wild rice, my favorite American soup! It came with four slices of bread and a really nice paper plate. The soup also comes with a lid, so it's easy to take out.

We ordered all of our pastries to go, and the cashier separated them into brown cardboard boxes lined with tissue of garlic croissants, sweet pastries and salty pastries.

Here is the cute paper bag to go (that costs 10 cents)! the bottom is not wide enough for the cardboard boxes though.

Paris Baguette also has a couple of reward system. One is a loyalty card where you get certain discounts while another is a stamp card for coffee.

Overall, I really love this branch of Paris Baguette! The decor and location are lovely, the staff are friendly and most importantly, the food is delicious! My favorites are the soup and the green tea dorayaki. Next time, I'll be sure to try the pizza!