A 2003 Mercury News photo shows Amber India shortly after the restaurant opened on Santana Row in San Jose. (Meri Simon/Bay Area News Group archives)

The Amber India The group has permanently closed their restaurant on San Jose’s chic Santana Row. The owner said the drop in in-person work at the local offices has been “adversely affecting” the lunchtime business at the upscale restaurant.

Amber India was one of the original tenants of the center which opened in 2003.

“After 20 years, our lease ended in May of this year, and to renew the lease we would have to pay a much higher rent and make a lot of changes,” said owner Vijay Bist.

So rather than invest in this property, he decided to transition to a new business plan for the South Bay while maintaining his more traditional restaurant model in Los Altos, where he has a loyal clientele, and in San Francisco, where his Yerba Buena restaurant is located. proved popular.

“As the restaurant landscape evolves, Amber will evolve with our customers,” he said.

The relocated Santana Row restaurant in Milpitas will have both production space in the kitchen and front-of-house dining areas to cater to two audiences, he said: those who prefer business take-away, catering or Indian street snacks, and those who want to more traditional food. The new lunch boxes, available for pickup or delivery, include options like Butter Chicken, Goa Fish Curry, Tandoori Chicken, Saag Corn, Kadai Paneer and Aloo Gobhi; All are served with basmati rice/quinoa.

Amber India’s first Silicon Valley restaurant was located on the peninsula in 1994 (first in Mountain View, then in Los Altos). “The timing was perfect,” Bist said in a later interview with Mercury News. “What might have seemed like exotic food to native Californians at the time was a taste of home for the many software developers who hailed from the Asian subcontinent,” says Bist.

Big plans to open a stylish restaurant on Santana Row were delayed in October 2002 when a major fire broke out in the centre, which had been under construction for two years and was close to customers and residents.

Finally, in 2003, Amber India opened there, and in the years that followed it was voted “Best Indian Restaurant” by Zagat guests. The opening also sparked a South Bay trend toward upscale Indian restaurants offering contemporary menus, wrote then-Mercury News restaurant critic Aleta Watson in 2006.

The new Milpitas location is expected to open this Friday, June 30th at 556 S. Milpitas Blvd. opened, with on-site and take-out dining; The alcohol license is coming soon, said Bist.