By: Thomas Rogers

A new restaurant, Starfish Menlo Park, has applied for a building permit to renovate and occupy the existing commercial building at 1165 Merrill Street. The site is directly adjacent to the Menlo Park Caltrain station, and is located across the street from the Station 1300 development, which is intending to start primary construction soon. The structure is currently vacant, but was recently occupied by the restaurants Bradley’s Fine Diner and Bradley’s Funky Franks.

Starfish is proposing to comprehensively update and modernize the tenant space, with most of the revisions occurring on the interior. A few modest changes to the building exterior have been approved by staff and cleared by the Planning Commission, which will now allow the building permit application to be reviewed in full. Previous approvals for outdoor seating on the building’s covered porch and for alcohol sales and consumption would remain effective for the new restaurant, subject to compliance with ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) regulations. Although the name of the restaurant may give a clue to the type of food, that information has not yet been provided.