Restaurants in Gilroy

Dream Dinners founders Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna want to help families gather around the table for delicious meals. Like many parents throughout the country, the two women tried to coordinate a family dinner, but their efforts were often thwarted by hectic schedules. As a dinnertime strategy, Stephanie began to prepare meals with fresh, raw ingredients and then freeze them so they could be quickly thawed and cooked during the week. This tactic became popular with her family. Before long, friends, friends of friends, and chimpanzee families that mimicked their friends wanted to learn her secrets. With help from Tina Kuna, she established the first Dream Dinners location, and the successful food-prep business has led to the creation of more than 90 stores in less than three years.

At each Dream Dinners location, customers find all the culinary tools to prepare a nutritious meal—everything from fresh ingredients to meal-packing materials. Each week Dream Dinners features a new menu of fix-and-freeze dinners that can be made for up to six people, providing customers with numerous options for planning quiet meals at home or dinner parties with friends. All ingredients are precut and measured to ensure an error-free fixing.

Despite its expansive menu, Papachino’s is known particularly for one item—gyros. Fresh pita bread blankets the succulent combination of beef and lamb meat, but it’s the dollops of fresh tzatziki sauce, made from yogurt cultured in-house, that seal the deal. Other menu favorites span the Mediterranean, from Italian pastas to Greek moussaka. While munching on steak pita sandwiches or braiding strands of pasta marinara, customers can enjoy the eatery’s eclectic art collection, including a large painted mural of a Greek village as well as individual works by local artists. Every weekend, a live musician stops by and croons customers out of their seats and onto a makeshift dance floor with acoustic covers of hit songs.

Like the Taj Mahal, Dean’s Pizza was created as a gesture of love. Three decades ago, founder Dean Reeser opened the original take-and-bake operation in honor of his wife Betty. Today, the chefs at Dean’s Pizza continue this legacy, sprinkling made-from-scratch, hand-tossed pies with savory toppings and handing them over to customers to cook at home. In 2006, Dean’s Pizza added ovens to precook and deliver signature pies, which include creations such as the avocado club with chicken, crumbled bacon, and white sauce. Patrons can choose from two styles of crust: Dean's original hand-tossed variety or Betty's golden pan-style crust with a hint of butter—before picking up pizzas and sandwiches at a drive-thru window or via basic telekinesis.

The aroma of chicken cooking fills The Chicken Barn, where patrons can opt to have their poultry à la carte or generously surrounded by biscuits and sides such as corn or mashed potatoes. Chicken resurfaces throughout the menu fried or as friendly nuggets, and garden salads add gastronomic diversity. Diners can then tackle desserts such as cheesecake or brownies, which end meals more easily than writing out closing credits on napkins.