Downtown Mountain View's Next Round of Openings Is Ordered at the Counter

For 24 years, 790 Castro Street was Amici's East Coast Pizzeria. Amici's now operates a few miles away at 450 San Antonio Road. The space it left is set to become TleafGreen Burmese Kitchen, a fast-casual restaurant where a tea leaf salad costs $13.95.

That handoff is a fair summary of downtown this fall. The food businesses arriving on and around Castro Street are counters, quick-service rooms and dessert-and-drink shops. One opened as a counter inside an existing market. Another is a chain-in-waiting whose owners say its whole model is built on lower prices. A third serves coconut pudding on Dana Street. Meanwhile the street they all face is changing on a much slower schedule.

A poke counter inside a market at 340 Castro

The first arrival never needed its own storefront. Ry's Poke Shack, which Ryan and Khannie Ching started as a food truck on Oahu, made its Bay Area debut on Sept. 3 inside Ava's Downtown Market & Deli at 340 Castro St. Palo Alto Online reported that the shack took over the market's former Poke Bar space, shares the building with restaurant tenant Simply Sabor, and has John Oh as a local operating partner.

It ran a soft opening for a few weeks before its grand opening on Sept. 25. It is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. A market hosting rotating counters can bring in a new brand without a new build-out, and on Castro that is the fastest route from announcement to open doors.

790 Castro: Burmese food, priced for a quick lunch

The slower route goes through a full restaurant space, and TleafGreen shows how long it can take. Partners Yong Ming Yang and John Luo told the Mountain View Voice they signed the Mountain View lease before the one for their San Jose location. They had planned to launch the concept here, but city planning took longer than expected, so San Jose opened first in April. The Castro Street location is now expected in December or January.

The team behind it already runs full-service Burmese restaurants: Burma Bay Cafe in Fremont, Burma! Burma! in Dublin and Burma 2 in Walnut Creek. TleafGreen is their counter-service version. Luo told the Voice that the fast-casual model lets them price the menu 20 to 30% below other Bay Area Burmese restaurants while keeping the same flavor and quality. All of the meat is halal.

The reported prices:

• Tea leaf salad, the top seller: $13.95, plus $2.95 to $4.95 to add chicken, salmon, fried soft tofu or shrimp
• Burmese chicken salad and golden mango salad: $12.95
• Hot dishes such as black pepper chicken, string bean beef and mint jalapeno chicken: $6.90 to $16.90, in three sizes
• Rice and noodles, ordered separately: $2.85 to $9

The room will have about 35 to 40 seats plus patio seating. The Voice reports it will be the only Burmese restaurant in Mountain View. The nearest Midpeninsula alternatives are Burma Love in Menlo Park and Rangoon Ruby in Palo Alto, both sit-down restaurants. The owners also want more locations. Luo named Santa Clara and Palo Alto as possible next sites and described the long-term goal as a national chain.

Dessert on Dana Street, matcha on the 200 block

A block off Castro, Tong Sui was forecast to open at 747 W. Dana St. in October. Debby Wang founded the brand in 2019. According to What Now San Francisco, the Mountain View menu includes coconut puddings, fruit smoothies and tea drinks such as Mango Mochi Coconut Pudding, Mango Sticky Rice Coconut Pudding and Coco Mango. In mid-October, the brand's own location list did not yet show a Mountain View shop, so check before you go.

The furthest-out item on the calendar is Maruwu Seicha. The Mountain View Voice's fall opening roundup lists it for 236 Castro St. with a June 2027 target and a menu that includes matcha and hojicha lattes, cheese tarts and matcha gelato.

Here is the whole set, by address:

What closed this year

The arrivals follow a year of departures from places built around staying a while. Los Portales at 430 Moffett Blvd., just past the Castro Street core, closed on Feb. 10 after 34 years. The Mountain View Voice reported that a six-story apartment building is planned for the site.

In March, Next Level Board Game Café at Villa and Bryant streets closed after a final Thursday-evening social meetup. It had opened in late 2023, and at the time of the closure report no replacement tenant had been identified for the space.

The two closures had different causes and give no single reason for the shift. Still, both were places for a long evening, and the confirmed replacements so far are faster formats. Amici's also stayed in Mountain View, moving to San Antonio Road instead of leaving town. Its old Castro address will be used for a lower-priced, quicker meal.

The street underneath is on a longer clock

Most of these businesses sit on or just off the three blocks of Castro Street between California Street and West Evelyn Avenue. The city closed that stretch to cars during the pandemic to make room for outdoor dining and has since taken steps to make the closure permanent, including center striping and decorative fencing around the seating areas.

Anyone walking down the middle of the closed street still has to step over to the sidewalk to cross at Villa and Dana. On March 10, the City Council approved 6-0 a design concept for 21-foot-wide central crosswalks at both intersections, with new traffic signals and pedestrian push buttons. The city spokesperson put the cost at about $3.5 million. Those are the corners closest to Tong Sui on West Dana and the former Next Level space at Villa and Bryant.

The schedule has slipped. In March, the Voice reported that final designs were expected this fall and construction was expected to start early next year. The City's capital projects page, updated in September 2026, lists the work as Project 23-49, "Castro Ped Mall Interim Improvements." It shows 65% of design development complete, the project still in the Design phase, and completion in fall 2028. The California Street intersection is a separate, later phase. The Council postponed it in October 2024 because of funding constraints, and the city plans to modernize the roundabout there only after the Villa and Dana plans are final and construction money is secured.

Put the two timelines side by side. Ry's went from food truck brand to Castro Street counter in a single September. TleafGreen's wait for city planning added months to its opening. The intersections those businesses sit beside are listed for completion about two years from now. If TleafGreen opens on schedule, its 35 to 40 seats and patio will look out on today's Villa and Dana crossings until that listed fall 2028 finish.

A short winter calendar for downtown

1. Now: Ry's Poke Shack at Ava's Downtown Market & Deli, 340 Castro St., daily 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
2. This fall: Tong Sui at 747 W. Dana St., on its October forecast.
3. December or January: TleafGreen Burmese Kitchen at 790 Castro St.
4. June 2027: Maruwu Seicha at 236 Castro St.
5. Fall 2028: City-listed completion for the central crosswalks at Castro and Villa and at Castro and Dana.

A new counter at 340 Castro, a pending tenant at 790 Castro and a crosswalk schedule running to 2028 all shape the blocks around a downtown Mountain View home. If you own nearby and want to know how those blocks figure into your home's value, Kathleen Pasin is glad to talk it through. Request a complimentary home valuation, and we will start with the blocks you walk to.