{"id":419,"date":"2012-11-27T17:36:41","date_gmt":"2012-11-27T17:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=419"},"modified":"2012-11-27T17:36:41","modified_gmt":"2012-11-27T17:36:41","slug":"my-perfect-day-shopping-small-in-los-gatos-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/my-perfect-day-shopping-small-in-los-gatos-california\/","title":{"rendered":"My perfect day shopping small in Los Gatos, California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Silicon Valley would hardly fit anyone\u2019s definition of small business, but the fact is the high tech capital of the world is made of many small towns \u2013 San Jose excluded &#8211; with lots of small businesses.\u00a0\u00a0 I live in one of these towns, so I get to enjoy \u2018small town living\u2019 on a daily basis.\u00a0 Home for me is Los Gatos, a 125-year-old town, which means the cats in Spanish and is so named because of the many wild cats that used to roam the area (some still do). Conveniently, Los Gatos is about a 30 minute drive from Plantronics headquarters in the coastal town of Santa Cruz.<\/p>\n<p>Take it from a proud resident, Los Gatos more than lives of up to reputation as a friendly community with an alluring downtown that boasts a variety of unique and charming shops and restaurants. Still we are not without the major chain stores. They moved in over the past few years displacing many of the boutique shops.\u00a0 Though the big retail brands have impacted the legendary complexion of the Town, it has managed to retain a small town feel. \u00a0On Saturday, I was excited to support some of the small businesses that still add so much personality to my community.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a chronicle of my Small Business Saturday Los Gatos Style<\/p>\n<p>10:00 a.m. Time to get styled at Parlour 308 in preparation for a day of local shopping.\u00a0 \u00a0Parlour 308 is actually several small businesses within a small business! \u00a0My hairstylist, Wendy, is self employed and accepts my payment via American Express using her iPhone and Square technology.\u00a0 Very cool.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Hair-Stylist.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-420\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Hair-Stylist-223x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"223\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>12:30 p.m. \u00a0My daughter, who is home from college, joins me for lunch at new The Mmoon restaurant that features several varieties of Argentinean empanadas.\u00a0\u00a0 Tasty and healthy!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Mmoon-restaurant.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-421\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Mmoon-restaurant-300x298.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"298\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>1:30 p.m.\u00a0 We bought gifts at one of my favorite shops, The Black Cat, known for its vast assortment of hats and jewelry.\u00a0 Owner, Janet, was ready for shoppers with her Shop Small welcome mat!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Black-Cat-e1384881676698.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-422\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/files\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Black-Cat-300x296.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"296\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>2:00 p.m. We bought a cool cat toy for my 18 lb cat, Bayley, at Purrsnickety, a 30 year old business (and appropriately named store)!\u00a0 Incidentally, the adjoining store is Bow Wowser.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Purrsnickety.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-423\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Purrsnickety-292x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"292\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My family had dinner at Gardinos, a family owned Italian restaurant on the downtown strip and visited with Pete, one of the owners.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a great way to end the day with scrumptious food\u00a0 &#8212;\u00a0 \u00a0they don\u2019t hold the garlic at Gardinos &#8211; in a festive setting.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Gardinos.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-424\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Shopping-small-in-Los-Gatos_Gardinos-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>All in all, I enjoyed a great Small Business Saturday in my favorite small town.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Silicon Valley would hardly fit anyone\u2019s definition of small business, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[510],"tags":[637,580,582],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}