Mountain View staple closes

Chez TJ, the longtime French tasting-menu restaurant in downtown Mountain View, is closing after more than four decades in business. (whatnow.com) Owner George Aviet announced the shutdown in an Instagram post on April 15, and the restaurant’s website stopped taking reservations the same day. Chez TJ’s address is 938 Villa St., inside a Victorian house in the city’s downtown. (padailypost.com) Local reports said the restaurant closed service on Tuesday, April 14, after a run of more than 40 years. East Bay Times reported the business dates to November 1982, while other outlets described the run as 43 or 44 years. (rwcpulse.com) (eastbaytimes.com) Chez TJ had been one of the Peninsula’s best-known formal dining rooms, serving contemporary French cuisine with a full tasting menu and a shorter four-course option priced at $165 in June 2025. Its larger chef’s tasting menu was $250 at that point, according to SFGATE. (sfgate.com) The closure lands less than a year after Michelin dropped Chez TJ from its California star list in June 2025. SFGATE reported the restaurant had held a Michelin star for 19 years, starting when the guide first covered the Bay Area in 2006. (sfgate.com) That left Mountain View without the restaurant that had long anchored its fine-dining reputation, while other Peninsula cities still have Michelin-recognized destinations. Michelin’s current guide still lists Selby’s in Atherton as a one-star restaurant, and the Peninsula tourism bureau highlights Protégé in Palo Alto, The Village Pub in Woodside, and Wakuriya in San Mateo among Michelin-recognized spots. (guide.michelin.com) (thesanfranciscopeninsula.com) The restaurant also carried local historic weight because it operated inside the Weilheimer House, a home built in 1894 for Julius Weilheimer, a banker and former Mountain View mayor. California granted the 131-year-old house historic preservation status in 2019, according to SFGATE. (sfgate.com) Aviet opened Chez TJ with business partner Thomas J. McCombie, whose initials gave the restaurant its name. After McCombie died in 1994, Aviet kept the restaurant going and, over time, helped launch chefs who later opened restaurants of their own. (eastbaytimes.com) (rwcpulse.com) In 2023, Aviet told SFGATE he felt unable to retire because the historic property complicated a sale or redevelopment. This week’s closure ends that standoff by taking one of Silicon Valley’s oldest white-tablecloth addresses off the map. (sfgate.com)