If Silicon Valley has a street of dreams, it's University Avenue in Palo Alto.
Just across the train tracks from Stanford University, Palo Alto is the first stop for startup schemers.
Google got its start on University Avenue. So did PayPal. After Mark Zuckerberg moved Facebook out his dorm room, he set up shop in Palo Alto.
Tech moguls call Palo Alto home, too—Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Larry Page, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg all liver there.
The only downside of Palo Alto's leafy streets and sunny clime: Space is tight. Pinterest, looking for more office space, moved to San Francisco. Quora is heading south to Mountain View. Palantir, a secretive startup which serves the CIA and FBI, among other customers, is grabbing all the space it can in downtown Palo Alto, and other companies complain it's squeezing them out.
Palo Alto is centered around the Caltrain station. The commuter-rail line runs between San Francisco and San Jose. Palo Alto is almost the halfway point—a little closer to San Jose.
Here's your first glimpse of University Avenue—a tree-lined, pedestrian-friendly oasis among Silicon Valley's office parks and freeways.
Start with breakfast at the Palo Alto Creamery—no relation to the equally famous Creamery in San Francisco. This is more of a diner—a good place for eggs and bacon.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider