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Ed Rathmann & Glenn Thompson – Willow Street Pizza & Main Street Burgers

By in 2014 - Volume 16

willowstreetEd started his career in the industry in the 70’s as an owner operator of Eulipia, a successful night club and restaurant which he operated for 14 years in downtown San Jose which he sold to his partners. While he was negotiating his premises lease with his attorney Glenn Thompson for a new location, they decided to join forces as partners and opened up Willow Street Pizza in the Willow Glen district of San Jose in 1991. Their concept is serving high quality pizzas cooked in wood fired ovens using Ed’s cousin’s (Ed’s cousin runs an Italian restaurant in Northern Italy) Italian dough recipe. Willow Street serves high quality wood fired pizzas, Italian thin crust pizzas, gluten free pizzas, pastas, salads and starters. They have locations in Los Gatos, and two in San Jose –in the Willow Glen district and in the Westgate Shopping Center.

They opened their first Main Street Burgers location in Los Gatos in 2005 which serves Niman Ranch beef hamburgers, fresh cut Kennebeck fries with thick shakes and homemade sundaes made with premium ice cream.

Ed handles the operations and marketing activity of both concepts and Glenn handles the administrative side of the business. Their operating philosophy of providing their customers a quality product using local fresh ingredients and high quality beef and fish products in a family friendly environment with an emphasis on price value has contributed to their success.

Restaurant Realty had the opportunity of working with Ed and Glenn in two transactions and most recently in selling them their new location for their Main Street Burgers location in Willow Glenn, San Jose which recently opened. We wish them much success in their new location and in all of their future endeavors.

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About The Author
Steven Zimmerman, CBI, M&AMI, CBB, FIBBA

Steve is the Founder, Principal Broker and Chief Executive Officer of Restaurant Realty Company. Steve has personally sold/leased over 1,000 restaurant, bar and/or nightclub businesses and many related commercial buildings totaling 2+ million square feet of commercial space, collaborated with over 2,000 clients and completed over 3,000 valuations since 1996.His real estate experience also includes sales, acquisitions, management and ownership of numerous properties throughout California including restaurants, hotels, apartment buildings, single family houses, an office building and a multi-use retail building. Steve is also the author of Restaurant Dealmaker – An Insider’s Trade Secrets for Buying a Restaurant, Bar or Club available on Amazon. Prior to starting Restaurant Realty Company Steve had over 20 years of restaurant experience and was President and Chief Executive officer of Zim’s Restaurants, which was one of the largest privately owned restaurant chains in the San Francisco Bay Area. READ FULL BIO | HIRE EXPERT WITNESS - LEARN MORE