By Khalida Sarwari
When you meet Alice Walsh, you can’t help but feel like you’ve met her family, too. After all, traces of the restaurateur’s Irish-Italian roots are present in just about every inch of her Big Basin Way eatery, from her grandmother’s cannoli to the business cards propped up on the front desk depicting a black and white photo of her family.
Those colors are sprinkled liberally throughout East Coast Alice, nestled among rustic wood furnishings, with a healthy dose of gray to keep things interesting. To Walsh, the three colors symbolize heritage and tradition, qualities she’s tried to inject into a local food scene that’s otherwise dominated by fusion and contemporary offerings.
And few things spell tradition more than her cheeseburger submarine, which at first glance looks like any ol’ cheeseburger, except this version comes with Italian dressing and mayonnaise, an East Coast twist that can be found in almost every dish on the menu. In other words, don’t bother asking for the cheeseburger submarine at In-N-Out.
Ninety-nine percent of East Coast Alice’s fare is based on recipes passed down for generations in the Alimonti-Walsh family. Born and raised in Endicott, N.Y., a community of fewer than 14,000 residents, where many members of her family owned restaurants, Walsh moved to the Bay Area in 1992, eventually settling in Campbell. But it’s Saratoga where she said she feels most at home, because it’s reminiscent of the ethnic community she grew up in, where a melting pot of Poles, Italians and Irish was always celebrating some kind of festival, which for her meant exposure to all kinds of food.
“It’s a lovely space; I love this town,” Walsh said of Saratoga. “I could have opened in Los Gatos or Campbell, [but] this is a quaint little town. This is what I grew up with.”
One of the biggest compliments she said she’s received recently came courtesy of a 93-year-old Polish woman, who after dining at her restaurant, told her the food reminded her of her mother’s cooking when she was a little girl growing up on the East Coast.
Recipes aren’t the only thing that followed Walsh to California; some years ago, her 76-year-old mother followed suit. Described by Walsh as a “little Italian lady,” her mother is a regular presence at East Coast Alice, especially on the weekends, where when she’s not barking orders in the kitchen, she’s hanging out at the bar.
What Walsh said she misses most about the East Coast is engaging in the art of conversation. She theorized that in California there’s so much to do, and people don’t have much time to sit around and while away the hours talking. But on the East Coast, with its frigid winters, there’s little to do besides getting together for long chat-fests with family and friends.
“Where I grew up, every neighborhood had a neighborhood pub where everyone gathered,” she said. “You sit at a bar and talk; you shoot the breeze. I just feel that’s what’s missing in this area; there’s no real neighborhood pub where you know everybody and hang out.”
That’s what she’s trying to create with East Coast Alice, she said–a setting for the people who want to come dressed to the nines and order a $40 steak as well as those who come in with a group of friends and sit back with a batch of chicken wings and pitcher of beer.
East Coast Alice opened in April at the former site of Casa de Cobre, which Walsh also owned. Prior to Casa, Walsh managed The Basin for 7½ years, an American restaurant her friend and former business partner, Andrew Welch, opened in 1999. In 2009, Welch opened Casa and operated it until Walsh took over the business in 2013. She felt compelled to close the restaurant earlier this year, however, when her head chef, Marcelino Hernandez, resigned and returned to his home in Mexico to care for his ailing mother.
“I had some people upset because Casa was closed,” she said, but with Hernandez gone, she felt the quality of the food would decline.
But there was a silver lighting in Hernandez’s departure: it meant an opportunity for Walsh get back to her roots. At Welch’s behest, she acted on an impulse to open an authentic East Coast-style restaurant.
Within five days, she transformed the Mexican-themed spot into a New England eatery, while retaining her staff of 20 employees, including Hernandez, who eventually returned to work for her as a head chef. Of course, the restaurant’s name also had to be changed, something that the privacy-inclined Walsh finds she’s still getting used to.
“It has a fun roll-off-the-tongue kind of name,” she said. “For me to have my name in the title is kind of uncomfortable, but it’s a cute name.”
At any given time Walsh can be found greeting guests as they walk in, kissing them goodbye as they’re walking out, balancing the restaurant’s books, tasting a new menu item in the kitchen or even rolling up her sleeves and doing some cooking herself. That’s a lot of different hats for one person to wear, but for Walsh it’s all part of a dream she’s fulfilling.
“I truly believe as long as you’re here and interacting with your customers, you can’t help but be successful,” she said. “Caring about what you’re doing and enjoying and liking it–this is what I’ve always wanted.”
East Coast Alice is open Monday through Thursday, 3 to 10 p.m.; Friday, 3 to 11 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. The restaurant is located at 14560 Big Basin Way, Saratoga.
They offer brunch on the weekend and live music on Friday evenings, as well as cocktails, wine and beer.
To learn more about East Coast Alice, visit their website at eastcoastalice.com or Facebook page at facebook.com/eastcoastalice.
