TleafGreen's founders signed the lease for their first restaurant on Castro Street in downtown Mountain View. They chose the storefront where Amici's East Coast Pizzeria had served for 24 years. The plan was to open there and grow from there. Then Mountain View's planning process slowed things down, so the team opened in San Jose first. In April 2026 the first TleafGreen in the world opened at 5353 Almaden Expressway, inside Almaden Plaza. Hoodline reported this on October 6, based on an interview partner John Luo gave to Palo Alto Online.
That detour fits a bigger change at the center. Two of Almaden Plaza's longest-running vacancies are being filled this season, and both new tenants are national brands choosing to come here. The center you'll walk through for holiday shopping this year has a different lineup than last year's, and most of the change has happened in the last six months.
The Burmese kitchen that opened here first
TleafGreen is the fast-casual offshoot of the team behind three sit-down Burmese restaurants around the Bay: Burma Bay Cafe in Fremont, Burma! Burma! in Dublin and Burma 2 in Walnut Creek. Yong Ming Yang, who is from Myanmar, and John Luo are two of the five partners. The Almaden Plaza restaurant is in Suite 40-A and held its grand opening on April 25, 2026.
The menu is mostly familiar dishes served faster and for less. The best seller is the tea leaf salad at $13.95, made with fermented tea leaves, fried garlic, yellow beans, peanuts, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds. The Burmese chicken salad and golden mango salad are $12.95 each, and you can add chicken, salmon, fried soft tofu or shrimp for $2.95 to $4.95. Hot dishes such as black pepper chicken, string bean beef, Burmese shrimp and eggplant tofu come in three sizes priced from $6.90 to $16.90. All the meat is halal. Luo told Palo Alto Online that the counter-service format lets TleafGreen charge 20 to 30 percent less than other Bay Area Burmese restaurants. According to Hoodline's summary of the Visit San Jose listing, the Almaden restaurant also has vegetarian and gluten-free options.
TleafGreen's website lists daily hours of 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Its online ordering page takes orders until 9:15 p.m., so if you're cutting it close, call ahead or order online.
Almaden will keep its head start for a while. The Castro Street restaurant is now expected to open in December or January. After that, the team hopes to add two more locations next year, with Santa Clara and Palo Alto at the top of the list. Bay Area diners have mostly had to go to San Francisco, the East Bay or the Peninsula for Burmese food. For now, the brand's only open location is the one on Almaden Expressway.
Two big spaces, two new tenants
TleafGreen took a small suite. The larger change at Almaden Plaza is in two big spaces that have been empty or between tenants.
| Space | Previous tenant | Next tenant | Status in October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5343 Almaden Expressway | Red Lobster, closed by March 2023 | Benihana | Listed by the center as "Launching soon"; no opening date announced |
| About 14,400 sq ft at 5353 Almaden Expressway | A furniture retailer | DSW | Opening November 12, grand-opening event November 14 |
The Red Lobster closing made news in early March 2023. SFGate reported on March 8 that the company had confirmed the Almaden Plaza restaurant was closed. That freestanding restaurant has now been empty for more than three and a half years. In January 2026, What Now San Francisco reported that Benihana would take the space. It was one of two full-service Bay Area Benihana restaurants confirmed for 2026. The other is in Emeryville, in the old Chevy's waterfront building at 1890 Powell Street. Almaden Plaza's website still lists Benihana as "Launching soon," and no opening date has been announced. Until it opens, the closest Benihana is at 2074 Vallco Fashion Park in Cupertino.
The DSW move is firmer. The footwear chain's store listing shows Almaden Plaza opening on November 12, 2026, with a grand-opening event on November 14. The store takes about 14,400 square feet that a furniture retailer used to occupy. It will be DSW's second store in San Jose. The first is on Stevens Creek Boulevard, more than six miles from Almaden Plaza. The Silicon Valley Business Journal reported the lease in August. For anyone in the Almaden Valley who has been making that drive for shoes, the trip gets much shorter three weeks from now.
Why these spaces are filling now
Changes in both the retail market and the way restaurant brands expand explain why the old Red Lobster space finally has a big-name tenant after more than three years.
Start with the market. In the year before August 2026, Silicon Valley retail vacancy fell from 5.3 percent to 4.9 percent, and very little new retail space was built. Leasing demand has been especially strong in the San Jose, Campbell and Los Gatos area, according to The San Jose Blog's summary of the Business Journal's reporting. With little new space being built, growing chains end up competing for existing storefronts, including the big spaces at established centers.
The Benihana plan shows how this works on the restaurant side. The ONE Group bought Benihana in May 2024 for $365 million and has announced plans for 10 new Bay Area locations over seven years. According to What Now's January report, the company prefers locations that cost $1.5 million or less to open and gives priority to existing leases. A former Red Lobster already has a dining room, a kitchen and parking, so it fits that strategy closely. The Emeryville location follows the same pattern by moving into a former Chevy's. The company's model is also encouraging. It said the Benihana that opened in San Mateo in March 2025 had the strongest opening in the brand's 60-year history, and it plans to use that newer design, with a brighter interior, a relocated sushi bar and more teppanyaki grills, at upcoming locations.
The new tenants are joining a strong set of anchors. T.J. Maxx, Sports Basement and Hobby Lobby already draw steady traffic to the center. Sephora is also featured on the plaza's promotions page. Oakridge Mall and Almaden Ranch Marketplace are both nearby. For a growing brand, that amounts to a ready-made customer base with a vacant space waiting.
Other businesses are spreading across South San Jose in a similar way, but they started in the Almaden Valley. The Posh Bagel opened a cafe at 2005 Camden Avenue in the Lucky Supermarket center this fall. The Mercury News described it on September 3 as the chain's second San Jose cafe, after its Almaden Valley location. The Camden cafe is open daily from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The plaza's calendar for the next few weeks
Here are the dates to know for the holiday season on Almaden Expressway:
- Open now: TleafGreen, Suite 40-A, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. It is still the brand's only open location.
- Thursday, November 12: DSW opens in the former furniture store space.
- Saturday, November 14: DSW holds its grand-opening event. That Saturday is the first weekend the new store is open, so expect parking near the DSW end of the lot to fill up.
- December or January: TleafGreen's Castro Street location in Mountain View is expected to open, and Almaden will no longer be the brand's only restaurant.
- Date not announced: Benihana at 5343 Almaden Expressway, still listed by the center as "Launching soon."
Once Benihana opens, all three spaces discussed here will be filled, and the former Red Lobster lot will have a tenant again for the first time since early 2023.
If you'd like to know how the changes along Almaden Expressway fit into your own home's value, our family at The Chiavettas is happy to walk through it with you. Request Your Home Valuation, and we'll talk it through over a tea leaf salad.
