Downtown Sunnyvale's Newest Restaurant Landed on Its Oldest Block

Four years ago, Nandana Hazarika tried out for "MasterChef India." She was cut before filming began. She took that as a sign she needed to get more organized in the kitchen, so she enrolled in culinary school and interned at The Oxford Kitchen & Gastropub in Lodi. Later, the owner of The Oxford Kitchen decided to sell his Sunnyvale restaurant. Hazarika had spent much of her career as a software engineer and data analyst. She took over the space.

The restaurant is Khaar, at 193 S. Murphy Ave. It soft-opened Aug. 14 and held its grand opening Sept. 12, 2026. It is her first restaurant, and Palo Alto Online describes it as the Bay Area's first Northeast Indian restaurant. That makes it the newest and riskiest kind of opening downtown Sunnyvale can have. It landed on the historic block. Meanwhile, October's pumpkin patch, trick-or-treating and harvest-themed weekends are all scheduled across the way at Cityline, the newest part of downtown.

A first restaurant in a space that changed hands privately

Khaar did not move into an empty storefront. It took over a working restaurant from an owner Hazarika already knew from her internship at his Lodi location. The newest kitchen on Murphy Avenue reached the block through that personal connection.

The cooking is new to the area. It draws on the Seven Sisters, a nickname for seven neighboring states in northeast India, with influences from Nepal, Myanmar and China. Key ingredients include black sesame, fermented mustard, mustard oil and fermented bamboo shoot. The name comes from khaar, an alkaline liquid made by filtering water through the ashes of sun-dried banana peels, which is a staple of Assamese cooking. Hazarika was born in Assam.

For a first visit, Hazarika recommends the signature Khaar croquette for $18. It is made with Assamese alkaline rice and filled with flaky fish and fermented mushroom. For a main, she suggests the Black Sesame Heritage, chicken or pork slow-cooked in a roasted black sesame curry and served with sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf, for $29. Desserts include an Assam tea crème brûlée. The bar serves a smoked Assam old fashioned and a California-focused wine list. The dining room seats 135, with more seating outdoors. Khaar is closed Mondays and serves lunch and dinner the rest of the week, with dinner until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

The rest of the block opened elsewhere first

Khaar stands out because most of the restaurants that have opened nearby started somewhere else first.

Zareen's opened at 135 S. Murphy Ave. in time for a June 1, 2026 Mercury News report. It is the chain's fourth location and its farthest south. Zareen Khan started with a small Mountain View storefront in 2014, moved to Palo Alto's California Avenue in 2016 and opened on Broadway in Redwood City in 2020. Earlier this year she was named a 2026 James Beard semifinalist for best chef in California. The Sunnyvale location serves dinner from 5 to 9 p.m. daily.

Palo Alto Online's February guide to downtown Sunnyvale pointed out other names Midpeninsula diners would know. Moods. Wine Bar & Bistro used to be in Palo Alto, and Meyhouse is the Turkish restaurant's second location. Meyhouse is at 187 S. Murphy Ave. Moods is around the corner at 111 W. Evelyn Ave. and opens at 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

The block's longtime businesses go back much further. Paul & Harvey has been a dive bar there since 1937. Fibbar MaGees opened in 1994, and Heather Howard has worked there since its first year. In a June 23, 2026 Mercury News feature, Howard said she expects the block to stay successful. She added, "I think we're still going to see some turnover." Khaar's arrival shows what turnover on Murphy Avenue currently looks like: a new owner who already had ties to the space.

The setting has also changed. The city permanently closed Murphy Avenue to cars in February 2023. It has since upgraded the walking paths to make them cleaner, safer and more accessible. The historic Del Monte building at 100 S. Murphy Ave. stands at the end of the block as a reminder of the canning era.

The pumpkin patch is on the new side

Across from the historic block, Cityline has filled October with traditional fall events. Its developer, Hunter Properties, took over the stalled downtown project in 2016, almost a decade after the Sunnyvale Town Center mall was demolished in 2007. The centerpiece is Redwood Square, a 1.5-acre park and plaza built around preserved redwood trees and a digital water curtain.

Cityline schedules events on purpose. In 2025 it hosted 41 events downtown, including 13 festivals, with more than 150,000 attendees, according to Heather Gerlach, whose firm MDR Consulting does Cityline's marketing. This month that means a Harvest Festival at Redwood Square on Saturday, Oct. 24, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. It has a pumpkin patch and pumpkin carving, live music, a family dance lesson, trick-or-treating and local makers. It is free with an RSVP. A week later comes the Sunnyvale Autumn Food Festival, Oct. 31 to Nov. 1 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It includes food and craft vendors, live performances and a pet costume contest, and parking in the Cityline garages is free.

The city's own October events are on the older side of downtown or outside the core altogether. Its Diwali Festival filled Murphy Avenue on Oct. 3. Here is the rest of the month:

Two Saturdays when both halves are busy

Because downtown is laid out as a square of streets instead of one long main street, the two halves are a short walk apart. On Oct. 24 and Oct. 31, both are busy on the same morning.

On Oct. 24, the farmers' market on Murphy Avenue overlaps with the Harvest Festival at Redwood Square from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. On Oct. 31, the market runs inside the first three hours of the Autumn Food Festival. One morning can cover the produce stalls, then the pumpkin patch, then lunch at Khaar, which opens at 11:30 a.m. Kristina Kawczynski has lived in Sunnyvale her whole life and at the Martin apartments since August 2024. She described this walk in the June Mercury News feature:

"When you go from Murphy Avenue and you're having to go to a movie at AMC, you're passing by the brand new office buildings, the Martin, the Redwood Square. You're seeing a transition from an older downtown into a newer downtown."

Shake Shack is at the Cityline end of that walk, at 275 S. Murphy Ave. under the Martin. It opened April 1, 2026. At the older end, Keke's Breakfast Cafe and Gumba's Italian Restaurant are among the regular brunch and dinner stops the Mercury News found on the block.

What hasn't opened yet

Some planned changes are still on paper. The city's Plaza del Sol Phase II project for the 1.6-acre park at 200 W. Evelyn Ave. would add a play area, lighting, spray misters, an enhanced labyrinth, seating and public Wi-Fi. The city posted a re-bid for the project on Sept. 25, 2026, and bids are due Oct. 14, so the contract was still out for bid in early October.

Cityline's tenant list is also waiting on new arrivals. A December 2025 Mercury News report said Haldiram's, Joe & the Juice and Sana'a Coffee House had leases there. As of early October 2026, all three are still listed as "Coming Soon" in Cityline's directory, with no opening dates. For now, the newest kitchen downtown is still Khaar, on Murphy Avenue.

Downtown Sunnyvale's mix of century-old storefronts and new mixed-use buildings shapes what people want to know about homes nearby. Questions come up about walking distance to Murphy Avenue, how event weekends affect parking, and how close a street is to Redwood Square. If you'd like to talk through how downtown's changes relate to a home you own or are considering, Nisha Sharma is glad to share what she's seeing. Request a private consultation and home valuation.