Words by Johanna Harlow
You’ve just attended an electrifying show at The Guild Theatre and, still buzzing with energy from the performance, you’re not ready to go home. Eager to discuss the evening’s highlights, before delving into the deep kind of conversation that only happens late at night, you check your phone for nearby spots. But this is downtown Menlo Park—good luck finding anything open past 9:30PM. “There’s no place to go,” Ali El Safy says with a shake of his head. “How often have I seen people standing by their cars talking after dinner?” That’s why, when the longtime owner of French restaurant Bistro Vida saw the place next door become available, he decided to fill the void.
Bar Loretta, Ali’s enchanting upscale lounge, opened its gilded doors in February and offers extended evening hours. “I wanted to do something really swanky … almost like a hotel lounge. High-end,” he describes. It’s the perfect excuse to dress up. “But also when you walk in, it’s comfortable, it’s easy on the eyes and the energy feels good.”
He likens his two establishments to daughters. Of 26-year-old Bistro Vida, he says, “She’s the older sister and she’s by-the-books.” By contrast, Loretta “is the younger sister—a fun, happy free spirit.” Bistro Vida upholds a traditional European atmosphere with rich red paint and a parklet enrobed in crimson curtains, while Loretta exudes dark feminine flair with black and burgundy tilework, moody floral wallpaper and bold glass bubble chandeliers.
The cocktails, garnished with marigolds and hibiscus flowers, rival their surroundings with eye-catching presentation. On the Grateful Dead-themed menu, drinks range from Brokedown Palace, made with gin, grapefruit and sherry, to Ali’s personal favorite, Mexicali Blues, with tequila, cucumber, serrano, ginger and lime. Wake Up to Find Out is the bar’s twist on an espresso martini. The reason for this unexpected pairing? The iconic jam band, fronted by Jerry Garcia, played its first gig here—way back when the group called themselves The Warlocks.
After opening, Ali was approached by a Deadhead who told him that Jerry Garcia’s grandmother had a parrot named Loretta. Grandma Tillie found the parrot wandering the streets after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Talk about serendipity.
“It’s not a cookie-cutter place,” notes the owner. And neither is Ali. Originally from Cairo, he lived in the city’s Jewish quarter and attended Catholic school. “I grew up in my mother’s kitchen because I was the youngest,” he says, recalling how she’d have him retrieve ducks and chickens from the roof while preparing dinner. Moving to New York as a teen, Ali lived at Hotel Chelsea for a time. Then he started working at restaurants. Busboy, food runner, waiter, barback, cook, he tried them all. “I know all the aspects of the business … Every place I learned something,” Ali says. Of course, “Like anybody in this business, you want to own your own place one day.” So when Ali moved out West, it was only a matter of time before he opened his first restaurant.
For Ali, it’s never just business. Bar Loretta, like everything he creates, keeps residents in mind. “My first client really is the community,” he affirms. You can be sure that nurturing Menlo Park’s nightlife scene isn’t the first time he’s crafted the culture here. Ali is also the man behind Bon Marché, a midweek European-style farmers market he launched in 2021. To make it happen, he reached out to vendors specializing in macarons, crepes, gelato and cheeses to curate an enticing selection. “It gave people a reason to meet and socialize,” he explains.
To that same end, Ali hosted an alfresco dance party during the early days of the pandemic, bringing in a DJ and marking out dancing circles six feet apart so that 60 or so people could safely get their groove on.
He’s also looking out for the city’s youngsters. “The kids, they have no place to go. When they’re done with school, they will go home, or they get in trouble somewhere else,” Ali says. So he championed closing a traffic lane on Santa Cruz Avenue to create a small plaza with picnic tables outside Bistro Vida, that includes a barrier-lined bike lane to keep cycling students safer. Now students from Hillview and St. Raymond and high schoolers from Sacred Heart, Menlo and Menlo-Atherton have a place to meet their friends. “The kids, they call it the French Quarter,” Ali smiles.
By turning his downtown block into a community hub, Ali has brought a bit of his childhood home to his adopted community of 30-plus years. In Cairo, “the barber, the bread guy, the gasoline guy, they all know who I am. They know my father. They know my family,” he describes. “Everybody was involved in everybody’s business.” Patrons of Bar Loretta and Bistro Vida can expect the same. “I know where you work. I know who you are,” he says of his regulars.
When it comes to all things Menlo Park, Ali’s your guy. “The last time I went to Palo Alto was maybe three years ago,” he chuckles. Why would he go to another city? “I have everything that I need around, really … This is where I want to be.”