The San Francisco Chronicle made a rare foray down to lil ole B'game to visit our friend Gary Doss and his PEZ Museum and wrote up a lovely review of the local gem
“I’m good, thanks,” said Doss, when asked by a museum visitor if he would like a raspberry-flavored Pez candy to chew over while he pondered exactly what he had gotten himself into 24 years ago when he opened the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia at 214 California Drive, a few blocks from the Caltrain station.
Inside the museum are 1,100 dispensers — at least one of every model made by the Austrian candy company since it began cranking them out in 1950. The museum is one of those places that, if it cost more than $3 to go in, nobody would. A magazine named it one of America’s top 50 roadside attractions, along with the beer-can house of Texas, the shoe tree of Nevada and similar places that most parents have made a habit of driving past on road trips without stopping.
Fortunately, three bucks buys not only an admission ticket but a personal guided tour from Doss, a former computer salesman and metal worker who got hooked on Pez a quarter century ago at an antique show. He tossed the computers from the Burlingame storefront to make room for the Pez dispensers and has never looked back, even when — as on Thursday morning — only three people showed up.
Way to go, Gary. As the giant new building rises across the street, let's hope over sized, glass-faced beasts don't consume everything quirky and quaint in town.
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