Purple Onion Cafe

I honestly can't believe I haven't reviewed Purple Onion before. I've been here more times than I can count -- I love this place. Purple Onion is situated on a corner in Downtown Los Gatos, which at times can make finding street parking a little challenging, though there is public parking nearby (behind Soda Works). Something to be aware of when planning your visit. Also note that there is another location on Westminster in Los Gatos. I've made the mistake before of not making this clear to a friend I was meeting, which ended up delaying our lunch when she went to the other location. Oops. Purple Onion is not a full service restaurant. Patrons order at the counter and receive a beeper to alert them when food is ready for pick up. At high traffic times, the line to order can extend out the front door and finding a table can be challenging. But more often than not, I've been able to secure a table and order food without too much discomfort. The decor is rustic and unfussy -- with a wood-paneled counter and back wall, self-service stainless steel water and tea jugs, large old-time Los Gatos photographs lining the walls, and bistro tables outside. It's cute. Food and Drink: Purple Onion has all the food and drink you'd expect from a breakfast/lunch establishment and then some. Espresso drinks, coffee and tea, soft drinks, and some house-made lemonade, among other options. Naturally, they have a pastry case with all the yummy treats -- the chocolate croissants here are awesome (they don't skimp on the chocolate!). They usually have vegan and gluten free options too. Purple Onion serves a variety of breakfast items, sandwiches, salads, and hot dogs, as well as specials. My favorite salads are the Chicken Cabbage Salad and the Superfood Ahi Salad. The Chicken Cabbage salad is enormous and filling, packed with their in house pulled chicken and veggies. The Superfood Ahi Salad isn't as large as the Chicken Cabbage Salad, but it is equally delicious, well seasoned, and fresh. I usually upgrade to a side of the veggie detox soup (think veggies swimming in a flavorful turmeric coconut milk broth) with this salad to round out the meal. My partner's go-to is the boardwalk baguette (ham, brie, and baguette). I've also gone with the breakfast burrito when I just want eggs for breakfast -- I can confirm that this is also yum. Overall, Purple Onion is absolutely a solid choice for breakfast/brunch/lunch when in Los Gatos.

Purple onion is a great little cafe right off the trail in downtown Los Gatos. I ordered the chicken Mozzarella sandwich with tomato basil soup. The sandwich has great flavor and a large amount of chicken - toasted to perfection. The soup was warm and creamy, nothing special. The prices are a little high for what you as this was over $20! Would come back and try other things.

My wife and I decided to go on a quick hike on the Jones trail located in Los Gatos. Afterwards, we decided to stumble in to this cafe to get a quick bite and some coffee. We've been to the Willow Glen location years back and I remembered having a good experience back then.This place was pretty busy when we walked in but was happy to see no line. The menu was pretty straight forward with breakfast items, sandwiches and salads. The lox box caught my eye as it looked delicious and light so I decided to proceed accordingly. I also ordered an iced americano to pair with it.We were able to get seating outside and it took around 10 minutes to get our order. The presentation was awesome - nice color arrangement with the assortment of smoked salmon, cucumber, capers, red onions, cream cheeses and a fresh French baguette.Let's start with the French baguette - it was warm and toasted and as fresh as you can get - the perfect vehicle for the cream cheese, salmon and the rest of the goodies. The smoked salmon was fresh - was not overly smokey and had a great bite. The toppings gave a nice freshness and crunch and the cream cheese stood out having a texture slightly creamier and closer to a whipped cream/butter feel - tasted delicious! It was a perfect combo combining everything together in a sandwich.The iced americano was satisfying as well. The coffee beans tasted high quality and their medium cup was bigger than most cafe's. We were in an out within 35-40 minutes and had a satisfying experience. We will definitely return the next time we hike on that trail!

I'm so excited because they have my gluten-free lemon bars again! They didn't have them in December when I was here last. The guys who work here now are sooooo much nicer than the girl who used to work here. I love their green detox vegetable soup. I'm having it for breakfast.

I have ordered for delivery a couple times from here and it is absolutely amazing. I have tried the chorizo burrito, latte and yogurt with fruit and granola. No complaints here!

I hate giving such a low star review but it's an honest one. I ordered an iced latte with oat milk after a long walk on the Los Gatos trail. I was excited to enjoy my first cup of coffee and grab a pastry. The croissant was good btw and they had a good assortment of other baked goods.When I received my iced latte the color was wrong, you know that feeling if you're a coffee drinker. There was a long line forming so I just decided to grab my drink and go. When I took the first sip it tasted like straight oatmilk with ice. I think the problem was there wasn't enough ice so the milk drowned out any espresso in the cup. The coffee needs work here. The service was great and I'd like to come back to try a pastry but I'll skip on the coffee.

One of the best coffee shops in LG! Great food, Amazing coffee! Good variety of ToGo foods as well!

Love the Purple Onion. Great spot for breakfast and lunch. Order at the counter, find your own seat. Uniformly high quality, every visit. Service is friendly and efficient. Everything here tastes great, but I gotta admit, I keep coming back over and over for the tomato basil soup. Inside and outside seating can fill up at noon-time, so plan accordingly. There is a second location on Winchester Blvd., which is also excellent.

Got takeout here on a Wednesday lunch. I got the Chicken Cabbage Salad and a Ham Quiche with Detox soup on the side.The Ham quiche was a little disappointing, I wish there was more ham in it. The outside of the quiche was nice and crispy so that tasted pretty good.The Detox soup was alright. It tasted like a bunch of greens just mixed together, but knowing that it was called detox made it taste healthier haha.The chicken cabbage salad was quite good and was a very big portion. Too big of a portion that there wasn't enough of the provided dressing for it. If you order this see if you can get an extra cup of the dressing. The wonton crisps absorbed most of the taste of the dressing but still were crispy.

The food here generally tastes good, and is lighter in a good way, but they have a pretty serious quality control issue. We order takeout from here perhaps once a week or so, and roughly 1 out of 5 times we get home and our order is just wrong.But more severely, at least twice in the past few weeks, we've gotten bread/baguettes that were stale to an almost shocking degree: left out for a week or more kind of bread; rock hard and quite literally *shattered* in our hands.That really isn't acceptable for a restaurant, and it makes me concerned about how they handle their meat and other goods which are riskier items.