Business Features

Courtesy of Jason Davis
Jim Davis Automotive last week marked 36 years of operations under owner Jim Davis. Davis, center, is flanked by BJ Correia, left, and Brian Nakai, mechanics at the shop.

A well-loved auto shop that services cars for customers all over the South Bay, including residents of Los Altos and Mountain View, hosted a celebration Nov. 8 for the man behind the muscle, Jim Davis.

Jim Davis Automotive at 3972 El Camino Real in Palo Alto boasts a 4.5-star rating on Yelp, with his perfect rating broken by a single one-star review from a Seattle woman who had a poor experience with one of the mechanics. The owner apologized personally in a response to her post.

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier
Belle de Jour owner Tammy Tao, left, and her friend and store manager Sandra Campbell recently opened their newly renovated clothing boutique on Main Street in Los Altos. Tao told herself she would only open the shop if Campbell were willing to help, as Campbell is a fashionista who has greatly influenced Tao’s own style.

Belle de Jour, the boutique that replaced the designer shop Shunzi on Main Street in Los Altos, is open and ready for customers to browse, acquaint themselves with the space and offer feedback on what kind of pieces they would like to see.

Owner Tammy Tao, a friend of previous proprietor Shunzi Che, had recently retired from her job as a developer at San- Disk when she was approached by Che, whose chain boasts the motto “Unique fashion for unique women.” Che, the store manager and Tao had discussed how Tao wanted to own a boutique someday, so when Che decided to close her Los Altos location and move closer to her East Bay home, Tao came to mind as her successor.

Courtesy of Marlene Cowan
Carl Guardino, president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, speaks at the Rotary Club of Los Altos meeting on transportation and housing.

Carl Guardino, president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, hears the same complaint over and over again about life in Silicon Valley: “This traffic is driving me crazy, but there’s no house here I can afford.”

Guardino, who spoke at the Rotary Club of Los Altos meeting Oct. 4, has a long career centered on developing transportation solutions. California governors have three times appointed him to serve four-year terms on the California Transportation Commission.

Photo courtesy of Mon Ami
Co-founder Madeline Dangerfield-Cha assists retired Stanford professor Ralph with writing his memoir.

Two Stanford University business school graduates believed in their company’s senior companionship model so much that they advertised themselves as the first to pilot it on Craigslist and Nextdoor. Their strategy worked, and now they have expanded to Los Altos.

Courtesy of Avaamo
Avaamo Inc. co-founders Sriram Chakravarthy, left, and Ram Menon are happy to call Los Altos home to one of their conversational artificial intelligence company’s offices.

 

One Los Altos company has been quietly working away on Second Street creating the future of how humans and computers will interact.

Co-founder and CEO Ram Menon, a Los Altos resident for the past 17 years, created Avaamo Inc. because he saw a huge shift coming in human-computer interaction. The way he sees it, there have been a few major changes in the way people interact with computers: the graphical user interface, the creation of the mouse and the use of touch for mobile phones. With each wave of technology, the time before that technology became almost unthinkable. And he thinks the next stage is coming: talk.

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier

Permits to demolish the Bierhaus beer garden and its outdoor patio and build a brand new commercial building moved forward despite community protest.

Mountain View's Bierhaus closed Friday, according to signs posted by owner Mike Finley.