Then, suddenly, it got crowded again.

"We had our best year ever last year," he said. "We're packed all the time and there's a great enthusiasm. ... we're virtually full right now and it's not even 9 o'clock (in the morning)."

And out in the parking lot? MacNiven is seeing "bizarre" $400,000 cars he's never laid eyes on before, at least not live and in person.

Chris Yeo, owner of Singaporean restaurant chain Straits, has seen business at his location on San Jose's new Santana Row development, which opened in late 2002, grow 25 percent in the last year and is projecting another 25 percent growth in 2004. His business has been helped by parties from companies like Pfizer. He plans to add his third Peninsula location within three months, in Burlingame, and hopes nearby behemoths like Oracle will drive in business.

Still, he cautioned that operators have to remain careful. His Palo Alto location, founded amid the high rents of the late 1990s, has not been making money, he said, and he plans to hand it off to a different operator.

Back in boomtimes, Butterfly in San Francisco acquired a following among the technology crowd at its Mission Street location. Current owner and chef Robert Lam acquired it in the wake of the bust and moved it to Pier 33 last year, closer to more traditional businesses in the financial district, but is seeing more technology crowd than he was right before he moved.

"They're coming more often," he said. "But they're definitely more budget conscious."

Lam's fans include some of the folks at Google, which rented the place for a holiday party in December. Still, he said, he is trying to build a reputation among all diners as a "dining environment and not this crazy hip-hop party" as it sometimes seemed during the boom.

Pritesh Saraiya, general manager of the Menlo Park Inn near Stanford University, a Silicon Valley banker fave, agrees that business is still too competitive to "go on autopilot" as companies did in the past. But he has seen a modest rise in room bookings.

"The venture capitalists are beginning to take a look at a lot of companies, and we happen to be in an area where business activity is paramount," he said. "There is some positive upshift."