We have had the nickname “Boringame” in the past. I first heard it when I worked in town in 1983, but this past Thursday to Sunday we were alive with the sounds of music on the Ave. Four days, three bands per day. A dozen bands. That’s a lot of music and hundreds of people came out to hear it each day even with the oppressive heat on the weekend.
I had the pleasure of MC’ing Friday and Sunday as I did for one day at Burlingame on the Avenue back in August. Sometimes it feels like our city is growing fast, but other times you see a lot of familiar faces and it seems still small. Well, maybe not “small” but not big either. Kudos to the Burlingame/SFO Chamber of Commerce for managing all the details of the program that makes it all go smoothly.
The talk on the street all weekend was about the merchandise theft and subsequent tackle of a suspect by a “Burlingame man” on Wednesday. Here’s the NBC Bay Area report complete with video.
A Burlingame man was caught on camera tackling a person police were chasing after a reported retail theft on Wednesday. It all started with a man running full speed down Lorton Avenue. Camera footage showed when he was followed by another, who quickly closed the gap and took him to the ground. The two wrestle on the sidewalk before a passing car blocks the camera’s view. The video was recorded around 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday. Around 15 minutes earlier, police said they received a report of a theft from a business on Burlingame Avenue.
Not recommended, but gutsy, nonetheless. Here’s Mike Annuzzi’s band closing the festivities last night.
On Sunday afternoon, more than 80 local neighbors gathered at Pershing Park for cake and conversation. The event was sponsored by the Burlingame Public Library and the Burlingame Community Center as well as the City. Volunteers spread the word by flyers and shoe leather since relying on the City e-newsletter doesn’t work as well. You need a flyer to put on the fridge as a reminder. Luckily the Niners had things well in hand against the Dolphins by the 3pm start time which probably helped attendance. I met way more than six there and a few new neighborhood dogs.
Meet 6 Neighbors is a state initiative focusing on building connection and reducing isolation. Research shows that knowing at least six neighbors improves physical and mental health as well as overall individual and collective well-being.
A wag might say it depends on which six neighbors, but let’s leave that for another post!
The goals of M6N are to improve well-being, foster civic engagement, fight loneliness, build trust and support disaster resiliency–the later similar to the BNN meet-ups, drills and Zello radio practice sessions. The Meet 6 Neighbors ad-hoc Committee consists of Colleen Conefrey and Margaret Glomstad, Park & Rec Department; Cynthia Ryder, Burlingame Public Library; Stephanie Lee, former city council member, Brad McCulley, City Librarian; and Anne Hinckle, BNN (The last four are pictured L-R below at the event). The next Park Party is scheduled for Sunday, October 18th at Cuernavaca Park. More will be scheduled in 2027. Moving the start time to 5pm and swapping out the cake for some vino might enhance attendance even more!
The news of former councilmember and planning commissioner Jerry Deal’s passing in June is reaching the B’game community along with the news that his wife JoAnn passed the week before he did. Jerry resigned his council seat mid-term in July 2014 as noted here. JoAnn was a long-time teacher at Franklin and moved around the elementary district offering art instruction to all the schools. The couple were a fixture on the local political, school and community event scene with a pair of smiles and quick quips that are easy to recall if you knew them at all.
An avid fly-fisherman, Jerry moved up to Bend, OR but maintained a pied a terre in SF for years after. Via a local contact, I received this background information
Jerry grew up in Redwood City. He went to Sequoia high, but I don’t know when he graduated. He then went to Berkeley, and he was working with an architect when he was in his third or fourth year there and I guess was doing so well that he just started getting clients and never finished the Berkeley architecture degree, but he didn’t need to finish. He was doing very well so I guess he quit in his last year.
I think of Jerry as the “father of design review” in B’game. I recall his powerful slideshow presentation to the city council that highlighted the need photographically. There was some terrible stuff getting built. It didn’t always go smoothly as you can read in this post from 2009. He was also in the middle of the long Safeway saga. For a fun time trip, Google “Burlingame Voice” and Jerry Deal and any topic of your choosing.
JoAnn’s obituary just showed up in the Comicle which you can read here. It notes 35 years of teaching and that she passed on July 12, 2026. I have not seen an obit for Jerry, but will add it if I find it. We shared an enthusiasm for music and wine and he showed me how to secure bottles in racks from earthquakes with a little double loop piece of fish line. Regardless of whether we agreed or not on some city issue or political slant, we were always cordial and for that I am grateful. RIP Jerry and JoAnn.
As they do every year since the ’30s, the Lion’s Club selected their Citizen of the Year this week. At a fun-filled luncheon at the joint Lion’s and Rotary get together at the historic Lion’s Club Hall, Sapore’s very own Elio D’Urzo received the honor. He also catered his own event! The list of thoughtful and charitable efforts Elio provides to local churches, schools, seniors and others is long and distinguished. In November, Sapore will be celebrating its 25th year in B’game. During his typically modest short acceptance speech, Elio described Sapore as a “home”, not a “restaurant”. That’s how I feel when I walk in.
He also noted that he has now spent half of his life here and half in Italy but is finding English comes to him easier here than Italian does there! He’s working with previous CoY Mark Lucchesi on his accent. Good luck with that. Everyone has seen him talk with his hands like the picture below. Congrats, Elio.
In the second feel-good Dine B’game news of the month, Alana’s Cafe owners Teresa and Francesca have struck a deal with five long-time employees to have them take over the cafe. Following close on the heels of Gigi taking the old Sam’s Sandwich space in the bus depot, this welcome news just tugs at your heartstrings and appetite.
The DJ did a piece about the transfer being a “business continuation” that Mayor Michael Brownrigg assisted with to make the numbers all work. You can read up on that here. I’ll just post the message that Francesca and Teresa posted in the window–that says it all.
Courtesy of the Historical Society, here is an older photo of when you got a wig instead of an omelet at 1408.
Word on the street is that after several stunted attempts by the city to lease the old Sam’s Sandwich space in the old Greyhound Depot, a tenant has secured the lease. It’s a small space but having it sit empty for several years has been depressing. Anything we can do to keep our small-town feel is progress.
About 300 community members came together under a clear blue sky last week for the ribbon-cutting at our new Town Square. It’s a long story which you can revisit via the Post Office category here from the groundbreaking in 2021 all the way back to 2012. I thought Mayor Michael Brownrigg delivered an outstanding speech and Michael kindly gave me his detailed notes to excerpt here. Here are some very lightly edited highlights of that speech.
The history of Burlingame last 50 years is history of parking lots: buying and leveling our bowling alley, the old City Hall, and others to build parking lots to compete with malls. 15 years ago, with our downtown sagging, we realized it was not parking, it was vitality and activity that mattered. And those parking lots – bought as a way to enhance Burlingame — now looked a lot like underutilized assets.
In 2008/9, in the heart of the Great Recession, our city leaders challenged our community, let’s reimagine our downtown. Over the course of a couple of years and many, many meetings, a vision arose. It was the product of robust input from groups like Citizens for a Better Burlingame and the downtown BID, Planning Commission, community leaders, etc.
We now see so many fruits from that 2010 Downtown Plan: affordable housing, creative and efficient parking, expanding energy and retail over to Howard, enhancing Burlingame Avenue with wide sidewalks and more pedestrian amenities. And today, the cherry on top, our new Town Square.
There are so many people to thank. Neighbors like the Salmas and the Karps and the owners of Yves De Lorme, who have consistently leaned in. Other business owners like Janet and Carl Martin who worked hard to make Safeway a better project way back when and who care deeply about the entire fabric of our downtown. Safeway was the first salvo by Burlingame in terms of imagining a more pedestrian friendly, community oriented and vital downtown. And a shout out to Stanley Lo, who helped control the Post Office site after it was put on the market and then helped sell the site to a group of people who could honor the history and imagine the future, and to Dave Hopkins, a co-conspirator at Sares Regis without whose courage this project might never have materialized.
Michael Brownrigg
Burlingame Mayor (2026)
On the occasion of the opening of the Town Square, April 2, 2026
As I said, this is just an excerpt, and he thanked many more people before turning the podium over several other speakers. Hopefully this Instagram video will load properly for a taste of the proceedings. The story about moving the Post Office over the downtown culvert and then back is one for the ages and I can’t wait for the restaurant that is the last remaining bit of the project.
Michael told me last week that he would use last night’s city council meeting to publicly affirm what we have been hearing for a sometime–that he would not seek re-election this time around. He leaves quite a service legacy having been appointed to the Planning Commission in 2001 and joining the city council in 2009. As we have seen with other long-serving commissioners and council members, their institutional knowledge is incredibly valuable in subsequent projects. And they still get button-holed in the grocery aisle long after they are out of office. Congrats, sir.
This year we get some advance notice of the BHS Panther baseball team playing on the Big Field again. A sharp-eyed reader remembered the post from last April and alerted me to this year’s extravaganza at Oracle. Here’s how the deal works. You buy a ticket to any of ten select Giants game listed here and you get a ticket to the high school game. The Panthers got the top of the card slot at 6pm. From the team:
Our very own Burlingame HS Varsity Baseball is playing at the Giants stadium! Our baseball program has worked hard to prove we deserve the opportunity to play on the big-league field. We need to sell 1,000 tickets and need your help. Buy your tickets NOW… Here are the details:
BHS v. CapuchinoWhen: April 11, 2026 at 6PM at Oracle Park
The corresponding Giants games are sprinkled in May, June and July. The team has a headstart since BYBA has bought tickets for each of their players, so the goal is about 600 more. Again, the link is San Francisco Giants (same as above). Play ball!
In another Only-On-The Voice moment, my sleuthing has uncovered rare pieces of Burlingamia that merit being shared with the old timers in town. At the current site of Stella on the Avenew was a local pub called the Bit of England. Very English. Real English ales on tap (I seem to recall it had my favorite, John Courage, and Watney’s). It was far from upscale and that’s what we loved about it.
It closed about 30 years ago (looking for fact checking help here, old timers. Sir Paul? Mark Lucchesi?) Our buddies Jeff and Barbara Moore were long time B’gamers who eventually decamped for Maui. Jeff had managed to procure the original Bit bar stools and used them with his Tiki Bars in B’game and on Maui. They slipped through his fingers during a move, but he has reacquired them. At his recently completed Tiki bar he and I enjoyed a tipple and a seat on the original Naugahyde Bit of England stools. Anyone with memories of the Bit, please weigh in here. I’ll be chatting with the Historical Society to get a photo or two to add to the Tiki bar.
If you were paying even a little attention to city council and various commission meetings over the last twenty-plus years, you would recognize Pat Giorni by her gravelly voice, fluorescent vest and informed comments made to one and all. Pat passed away on December 7th after being bedridden for several years. That had to be hard for her since she was a ball of energy hosting parties, biking around town and button-holing people to offer her opinion(s).
I often find council and commission meetings to be like watching paint dry, but Pat had the patience to sit through them and offer public comment that was always very much on point even if it was ignored. She was a true activist and a motivation for many others to get involved to one extent or another. Count me among them. And if I wasn’t too involved, I trusted her take on things.
It wasn’t just B’game stuff either–Pat had an equal amount of insight on county issues. For all I know, she might have been a regular at county supervisor meetings as well. Transit, planning, parking, public funding, local businesses and helping them (she was a chef for years and it showed at her massive house parties) were all in her wheelhouse.
If she liked you, you knew it. And if she didn’t you could probably figure it out pretty quickly. She liked my wife and hosted her campaign kick-off party in 2009 (shown here with Jerry Deal in the background). It was something as being around Pat always was. RIP, dear.
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