By John Flood
 TOWN CRIER FILE PHOTO Los Altos resident Freddy Maddalena, shown here at his neighboring Café Fino, closed his landmark restaurant Maddalena’s May 19 after 31 years of operations. |
Fine Italian dining has become harder to find in downtown Palo Alto.
Los Altos resident Freddy Maddalena, owner of Maddalena’s Italian restaurant, known for upscale dining and live music, closed his restaurant May 19 after 31 years of operations.
“With all the restaurants opening in Palo Alto, times have changed,” Maddalena said. “People don’t want fancy dining. Local companies have cut down on company meetings. It was a big challenge to keep going. And besides, the lease was up. The timing was good (to close down).”
Maddalena, who also owns Café Fino next door on Emerson Street, opened his restaurant in 1976. Over the years, it became known as a destination on the Peninsula for famous entertainers like Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett and Harry Belafonte.
The restaurant attracted celebrities like former President Jimmy Carter and former San Francisco 49er quarterback Joe Montana.
Several years ago, former President Bill Clinton dropped in to thank Maddalena for arranging private dinners at the restaurant for his daughter Chelsea while she attended Stanford University, Maddalena said.
Regular customers included former Secretary of State George Shultz, now with the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and the Packards - the late David of Hewlett-Packard fame and son David Woodley, who runs the Stanford Theatre.
But, after 31 years, Maddalena sensed it was time for a change.
“You have to change with the times,” he said, “and the costs to run the business - it was time to change because of the costs.”
Maddalena got his start in the restaurant business when he was 16, as a busboy at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. He learned the business step-by-step by taking jobs in the main dining room, at the front desk and in other spots in the hotel. He eventually ran his own supper club in Toronto.
In the mid-1960s, Maddalena moved to Las Vegas and took a job as maitre d’ at the Sands Hotel. But Maddalena, who had a wife and six children, recognized that Las Vegas wasn’t a family town. So he moved to California and eventually bought the Golden
