The A5 wagyu loco moco at Yutori is a daytime dish, and the A5 Shinshu wagyu is a dinner dish, and the reason is the kitchen. Yutori, the Japanese cafe, konbini, market and restaurant at 3375 El Camino Real in the Ventura neighborhood, cooks for all of it from one central kitchen. That one constraint sets the order in which the business opened, the hours of each counter, and the best time to walk in for whatever you want.
The four schedules, side by side
Yutori's website lists four sets of hours at one address.
| Counter | What it serves | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Hot deli | Made-to-order breakfast and lunch, hot sandos | Daily, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
| Cafe | Matcha, coffee, house-made pastries | Daily, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. |
| Konbini & market | Bentos, sandos, onigiri, sushi, pantry goods, ceramics | Daily, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Restaurant & bar | Shared dinner plates, cocktails, sake | Wed, Thu, Sun 5:30 to 9 p.m.; Fri, Sat 5:30 to 10 p.m. |
The hours leave gaps. The hot deli shuts first, at 3 p.m., and the konbini closes at 5 p.m. Dinner starts half an hour after that, so there is a quiet stretch between the last bento and the first dinner seating. On Mondays and Tuesdays Yutori is a daytime business only, because the restaurant and bar are closed both nights.
A few more details from the site: dinner reservations go through OpenTable, the bar takes walk-ins, and there is extra parking behind the building. Online ordering runs Monday through Thursday and covers drinks and pastries only. If you want a bento or an onigiri, you have to go in.
Why dinner came before brunch
The cafe opened in April 2026. Palo Alto Online reported that it drew long lines right away and that the outdoor seating became a popular place for meetings. The full-service restaurant and bar soft-opened in late September. Chef-owner Jerome Ito, who is also behind Go Fish Poke Bar and Taro San Japanese Noodle Bar, told the paper the first five months were "wild (and) unexpected."
The original plan was to add brunch first. Ito told Palo Alto Online that demand was so high the team couldn't do it: with one central kitchen, running a full brunch service while the konbini stayed that busy would have been too much. So the team launched dinner, which starts after the daytime counters have closed. Brunch is now expected in the spring.
The restaurant's hours follow from that. Dinner covers the hours when the deli and konbini don't need the kitchen. Brunch would need it during the same daytime hours the konbini and deli are already running.
What to order, by the hour
Since each time slot gets its own menu, the dishes worth ordering change with the time of day.
Morning and lunch, from the deli and konbini
The A5 wagyu loco moco is the deli's best seller, according to The San Francisco Standard's Oct. 31 review. It's a wagyu patty topped with a fried egg, mushrooms and gravy, with green onions and pickled radish on the side. The same breakfast-and-lunch kitchen also makes ebi katsu sandos on brioche and maitake po'boys topped with sunomono salad.
The Standard singled out the onigiri, which come with fillings such as miso salmon and beef sukiyaki with onion. The grilled unagi with egg costs $7. The konbini makes its bentos, sandos, onigiri and sushi by hand in small batches every morning.
Afternoon, at the cafe counter
The cafe serves matcha from Mie, Japan, coffee from a rotating lineup of roasters, and pastries baked in-house. The Standard suggested a matcha-dusted financier or a black-sesame scone for an afternoon stop. The cafe is open until 4 p.m. and the market until 5 p.m., which gives you time to browse the pantry goods, ceramics and stationery after your coffee.
Evening, in the dining room
Palo Alto Online described the dinner menu as 15 dishes, with small plates priced from $19 to $36 and large plates from $34 to $98. Ito's suggested starter is the Nikkei ceviche for $32. It's blue-fin tuna, salmon and local halibut in a black sesame-yuzu leche de tigre, served with taro root chips. Other dishes the paper highlighted:
- Seafood pasta with lobster, clams, scallops and mentaiko for $58, made with dashi from Dashi Okume, a 150-year-old Japanese dashi company
- Chawanmushi with blue crab, scallop and a shellfish dashi glaze for $22, with Umai caviar available for $15 more
- Shiro miso eggplant with soba crunch and whipped goma tofu for $22
- A 3-ounce cut of Japanese A5 Shinshu wagyu with daikon oroshi and house ponzu for $98
- Desserts by pastry chef Janet Tong, including a sudachi key lime tarte and hojicha Earl Grey tiramisu, priced from $12 to $15
Bar director Francisco Carranza previously worked at Viridian in Oakland, Pacific Cocktail Haven in San Francisco and Roses on Adeline in Berkeley. His first drink for Yutori was the Ume Chuhai, an $18 highball made with Ito's house umeshu, shochu, elderflower and tonic. The Melon Cream Soda, also $18, is the drink Carranza calls his "little baby," as reported by Palo Alto Online.
The dining room has 72 seats, plus about 30 more on the patio. A four-seat chef's table sits beside the open kitchen. Ito and his wife, Linh Tran-Ito, designed the space themselves instead of hiring a designer, using natural wood, Japanese maples and a white marble bar with green tile, modeled on their own house. Ito told Palo Alto Online, "As a sushi chef, I've always been in front of my guests."
A restaurant building that kept being one
3375 El Camino Real has housed restaurants for years.
- Boston Market was the tenant until the space went vacant in January 2013.
- Corner Bakery Cafe opened there on Oct. 7, 2013, as the Palo Alto Weekly reported that week.
- Yutori took over the former Corner Bakery space. Its 2025 plans called for outdoor seating inspired by a Japanese garden and parking in back, according to Palo Alto Online's report on the proposal.
Today, The Standard counts about a dozen Japanese maples over that patio.
The other direction on the same road
A short drive north, another longtime restaurant site is becoming something else. The Fish Market at 3150 El Camino Real closed in 2023. On Aug. 11, 2026, Mayor Vicki Veenker and other city leaders broke ground there on Acclaim Companies' seven-story building with 368 apartments, 74 of them affordable. According to Palo Alto Online's groundbreaking coverage, completion is expected in spring 2029. At the ceremony, Acclaim partner Gary Johnson talked about going to The Fish Market as a child.
That project is one of several housing applications along El Camino, most of them in Ventura and Barron Park. The City Council has also discussed how to keep restaurants on the corridor. Palo Alto Online reported in February that council members worried new development could push out longtime businesses such as Happy Donuts, El Grullense and Celia's. The council's plan was to set aside retail "nodes" south of Page Mill Road, including one around El Camino Way, home to Fuki Sushi and Tofu House. On Feb. 9, the council took up a resolution updating the El Camino Real retail node map. Council member Pat Burt, speaking at a January Retail Committee meeting, was quoted in that report:
"It has been our most affordable retail, and you get retail functions there that can't afford to be elsewhere in our city, and yet the occupancy has been high in general."
On this stretch, 3375 El Camino Real has gone from a rotisserie chain to a bakery cafe to a Japanese market with a cocktail bar, while the larger Fish Market parcel to the north is becoming seven stories of apartments.
If you're planning a Thursday visit, the deli is open until 3 p.m., the konbini until 5 p.m., and the dining room from 5:30 to 9 p.m., with walk-ins welcome at the bar.
If you follow the restaurant sites on south El Camino and want to talk about what's changing near your block, Christopher Mogensen is happy to go over the details with you. Let's Connect.
