LAFAYETTE, CALIFORNIA – When Roundtable Pizza in downtown Lafayette abruptly closed earlier this year, lots of locals hoped that a new restaurant would fill the space.
Specifically, people hoped for an equally casual spot–a relative rarity here in Lafayette.
It now appears that local restaurant watchers may soon get their wish. After observing extensive construction happening at the site of the former Roundtable, the Bay Area Telegraph stopped by to see what was going on.
We found that crews with a massive dumpster were actively ripping out the interior of the former restaurant.
In our usual style, we asked someone at the site what was coming in. They confirmed two things.
Firstly, this will indeed be a new restaurant. So again, that’s good news for people watching the site and hoping it would be another spot to eat, not a fancy retail store or the like.
We also learned that it will be a Chinese restaurant. No specific word yet on which one. But at least we know the nature of the new tenant and the cuisine!
Of course, we won’t stop there. We reached out to the city of Lafayette for additional details, and spoke to a person with knowledge of the project, who said he couldn’t comment at this time.
No building permit yet appears to be on file for the site, so it’s possible that the permit was applied for quite recently and simply hasn’t showed up in the County system yet.
Because again, construction is most certainly taking place!
When Roundtable closed, lots of locals were sad.
For many, it was a longtime birthday-party, after-soccer, quick-family-dinner kind of place. Older local restaurant directories show the Round Table at 3637 Mt. Diablo Blvd. listed as far back as the 2000s and probably before.
So the changeover marks the end of one very Lafayette era — and the beginning of something new.
Lafayette Already Has a Small But Loyal Chinese Food Scene
The new restaurant will join a small collection of Chinese and Asian restaurants serving Lafayette and Lamorinda.
The Lafayette Chamber’s dining directory lists The Great Wall at 3500 Golden Gate Way and Uncle Yu’s at 999 Oak Hill Road, along with Panda Express on Mt. Diablo Boulevard.
In other words, Lafayette has never exactly been the Bay Area’s biggest Chinese food destination. But there has been a steady local appetite for Chinese food downtown.
The Former Round Table Space Makes Sense for Another Restaurant
The location itself is a natural restaurant space.
The former Round Table sits along Mt. Diablo Boulevard, near other downtown Lafayette staples and close to the city’s core restaurant corridor. It is not a tiny hidden storefront, either. For years, it was a visible, family-friendly stop on one of Lafayette’s busiest commercial stretches.
That may help explain why another restaurant is taking a chance on it.
The big question now is what kind of Chinese restaurant this will be. Will it be a classic family-style, takeout-friendly spot? Something more modern? Dumplings? Noodles? Cantonese? Sichuan? A broader pan-Asian menu?
For now, we do not know. But the category alone will probably be enough to get locals watching the windows.
Hopefully, we’ll see a permit or get more info from the city soon. Make sure to join my free 925 News newsletter so we can update you as soon as we have a restaurant name or more details.
