Adorning the front of Taxim Mediterranean Cuisine is some beautiful terra cotta frieze work which was designed by locally renowned architect Birge Clark. I located a website devoted to preserving the heritage of Palo Alto's architectural structures and there's a web page devoted to Birge Clark's influence of architecture in this community over the decades and it reads:
It seldom happens that a single architect is so influential that his work actually provides a major component of the image of a city. There are, however, at least three California towns where this has happened: in San Diego with the work of Irving Gill; in Watsonville with the work of W. H. Weeks; and in Palo Alto with the work of Birge Clark.
While Clark designed some structures in the Tudor or Medieval Revival styles, his work is primarily in the Spanish Colonial Revival mode, or, as he prefers to call it, the Early California Style. There is in his work a fondness for large expanses of wall, carefully irregular fenestration, and embellishments of colored tiles and wrought iron. (Short tile video)
Clark's father, A. B. Clark, was an early Stanford faculty member and although his primary field was art rather than architecture, he was the designer of many fine early Palo Alto residences. Thus his son, Birge Clark, was exposed to architectural concerns at an early age and together they designed the Lou Henry Hoover House.
Clark's long practice has been almost solely conducted in Palo Alto, and was varied enough to include single aind multiple family residences, commercial structures and prominent institutional buildings. Thus, his hand is to be traced in every range of building in the community, and is responsible for the remarkable visual coherence of post–1920's Palo Alto.
This particular building was erected in 1927. Birge Clark was the architect and Wells P. Goodenough was the builder. Alterations were done by Smith-Burke Co. in 1934.