Hand-made sandwiches with fresh ingredients have been a staple at Geppetto’s for more than 30 years, but of course there are salads, coffees and pastries as well. Owner Frank Leou took over in 2018 after working at his family’s restaurant, Szechwan, which is just down the street.
The café at the north end of the Village not only has been serving coffee, pastries, salads and sandwiches since 1994, its present owners can trace their restaurant roots in Orinda all the way back to 1981.
That history helps Frank Leou and his wife Jenny Wu keep serving their handmade sandwiches and house dressings to residents who navigate past Starbuck’s and continue down Orinda Way.
“We have regulars who come in for coffee,” said Leou, “and regulars who come in for sandwiches.”
And those regulars might remember Susan Fitzsimmons, who originally founded Geppetto’s in Lafayette in 1980 before moving to Orinda in 1994. She stepped aside in 2016, and Peter Leou, Frank’s brother, decided to make the jump to a café from a full-service restaurant.
That full-service restaurant was Szechwan, just a few doors down from Geppetto’s, and it too was a family-run operation that’s been around since the early 1980s.
“I worked at Szechwan from 2008 to 2016,” said Leou, and then two years later, he decided to take over Geppetto’s from his brother. “It was definitely not easy. Certain things I had to learn along the way.”
But learn them he did, as Geppetto’s continues to serve drip coffee and its variety of offerings seven years later. And of course Leou understood his community, as he grew up in Orinda and graduated from Miramonte.
“People like that we’re family-owned,” he said. “They support local businesses.”
They also support Jenny Wu, who is the friendly face of Geppetto’s.
“We have a lot of customers who come in for Jenny,” he said.
But they also come in for the variety of hand-made sandwiches and salads, which gives customers choices they aren’t going to get at Peet’s or Starbucks.
Of course, they do have to seek out Geppetto’s, which is about as far north as you can go and still be in Orinda’s business district.
“The positive thing is it’s convenient for our regulars,” he said. “On the other hand, if we were closer to downtown, we might have more foot traffic.”
And more foot traffic would be good, as like all restaurants nowadays, Geppetto’s is dealing with shrinking margins and higher commodity prices.
“Everything is so expensive,” Leou said, and it’s hard to predict how those prices might change in the near future. “There’s so much uncertainty.”
But those deep Orinda roots count for a lot, and Geppetto’s has weathered plenty of storms in its 30-plus years on Orinda Way.
And Leou is counting on that history to help keep Geppetto’s going for another three decades.
