I stopped by late Wednesday morning to pay my last respects to Park Station Hashery, the popular eatery in San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood, before it closed its doors that day. Plenty of others had the same idea, as the line was out the door before noon.
Park Station Hashery’s closure was forced by “unforeseen circumstances,” according to a post from the restaurant on social media. I’ve heard both that it lost its month-to-month lease because the property owner got a great offer and that the rent increased to the point that closing made more financial sense. Either is plausible, but it doesn’t really matter whether Park Station’s demise was caused by one of those or some other factor.
Neighborhoods need hangouts like Park Station Hashery, and as a former colleague recently noted to me after his last visit there, we need more of them, not fewer.
From the day the restaurant opened in 2016, it felt like it had been at the corner of Park and Naglee avenues forever. Chef and co-owner Louis Silva brought some of the popular menu items over from the original incarnation of the Garage in Naglee Park, where he’d been a co-owner and chef as well. But he was able to make something much bigger and better, with a spacious outdoor patio that was as lively for weekend brunches as it was on cool evenings, and a huge menu loaded with sandwiches, salads, pastas and more.
It was a popular spot with the cycling crowd, by design, with specials on Two-Wheel Tuesdays that often meant 10 times as many bikes in the parking lot than cars. This last Tuesday night was the real farewell, with DJs and big crowds. By Wednesday morning, there were just three beers available on draft and a few menu items were already out. (Fortunately, the bread pudding French toast I had a craving for was still available.)…