Category: Dine Burlingame

  • First peek: The new, Old Post Office

    We noted that The Old Post Office restaurant was hiring back during the last Avenew festival here. An intrepid regular reader has added to the anticipation by getting a couple of photos of the nearly-complete interior–and they are exquisite. Check it out our first peek inside.

    I can taste the French 75s and Kir Royales already. Add a strolling violin player and some paté. Voilà.

    This is a good time to look back — way back — to 2014 and remember the effort that went into saving a key piece of the old post office. My lovely wife laid it out in an Op Ed for the DJ back on Sept. 25, 2014, here. I’ll repost just one small bit of it:

    With the recent sale of the historic downtown Burlingame post office on Park Road, these words from Dr. Gray Brechin, project scholar of The Living New Deal at U.C. Berkeley, come to mind: “Far more than utilitarian containers for conducting business, they are our piazzas — the places we meet one another and in doing so, see our landscapes, history, work and ourselves reflected back from their walls.”

    In my mind, 220 Park Road, embodies the spirit of New Deal public works projects built during the lingering poverty following the Great Depression and championed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in hope of rebuilding our nation and its people. Roosevelt, “an avid stamp collector,” per Brechin, “took a keen interest in the postal service” actively overseeing the design of six post offices near his Hyde Park home and believed “they are at once centers of community and symbolic of government’s integrity — and believed they should look it.”

    Click through and get the full Op Ed while we await the opening. You can sign up for updates from the restaurant website here.

  • Old Post Office: Almost dinner time

    While enjoying the bands at Burlingame on the Avenue this year I noticed that the long-awaited Old Post Office restaurant in the old post office is hiring. It also has the liquor license application filed so we must be getting close.

    The little sign telling people to stay off the beautiful lawn was promptly and widely ignored all weekend.

  • More local music: Barracuda’s turn

    Barracuda Sushi is doing its part to add some entertainment to the Avenew with comedy, game night and last night’s live jazz at the front of the restaurant with The Birds. I wasn’t familiar with the band–a quintet of Aragon High School kids–with a front line of alto and tenor sax, hence the name referencing Charlie Parker. They did a credible job on mostly mid-tempo standards.

    It’s really fun to see the latest Gen Whatever get into jazz and I hope to see The Birds around town regularly whether at the upcoming B’game on the Avenue (it’s probably too late for that) or Burlingame Live (Oct. 1-4) or on the Town Square. Barracuda is billing itself as the new Barracuda, but it looked the same to me and the chef’s choise sashimi was choice. Here are The Birds:

  • Citizen of the Year 2026: Elio D’Urzo

    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.

  • Alana’s will still be Alana’s

    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.

  • Sam’s replacement coming soon

    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.

  • Broadway Dining Meter? Eat faster.

    The Parking category here at the Voice is the repository for weird maneuvers, usually by drivers. But the City is not immune from having its weird moves get memorialized as well. Popular restaurants often require diners to be in and out in some time limit–often 90 minutes– so the restaurant can turn the tables at a profitable pace. It’s polite and often loosely enforced– no fine for staying 95 or 100 minutes. Perhaps just a nudge by the server. One wonders if this new form of Dining Meter at Cafe Figaro’s parklet on B’way will be as flexible? Can Figaro issue tickets to slow diners?

    I get why the City might have either a) left the old meter knowing investing in a new blue one would be a waste of money, or b) just taken the meter out altogether allowing staff easier access to the parklet tables. Installing a never-to-be-used new meter is odd. Could Cafe Figaro eventually give up its parklet? Sure, but that would be the time to refresh the meter. Otherwise, this looks like an expensive dog leash station.

    Enjoy the free parking around town with all the headless meter stanchions.

  • Broadway: Gas Leak Lawsuit

    I was pretty sure a lawsuit would be filed over the extended closure of businesses on and around B’way. I didn’t see the merchants being represented by one of the top 25 plaintiff law firms in the country, but offering local merchants support is meritorious. From the DJ piece

    A class action lawsuit on behalf of merchants in Burlingame’s Broadway area has been filed against the owner and operator of A&A Gas & Mart, who were previously named as responsible parties in a gasoline leak that caused days of power outages and road closures in the business district. 

    Burlingame law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy chose to move forward with the suit, filed Feb. 23, to seek an undetermined amount of damages for businesses that lost customers, revenue and inventory as a result of those outages and closures, attorney Nanci Nishimura, who is representing the plaintiffs, said.

    The merchants mentioned range from Maverick Jack’s at the old train station to Bonne Sante at the other end of B’way. The total number is more than 100.

    In a real twist of fate, the A&A Gas website’s “About us” page shows the B’way station! They appear to have four of their six locations on the Peninsula. We’re not talking Shell or Chevron here so expect some sort of settlement as they realize what they are up against. In the meantime, Broadway is lovely shopping and dining district and there has been a lot of free parking as the city deinstalls the old parking meters and waits to install the fancy new ones.

  • Dine Burlingame: Best Values

    B’game isn’t known as a high-end Peninsula dining town a la Palo Alto or, lately, Menlo Park as noted here. But we are apparently a mecca for “value dining” as determined by Opentable. The list is loaded with Italian restaurants as determined thusly:

    Looking for the best value restaurants in Peninsula? You’re in the right place. Each month, OpenTable analyzes nearly 2 million global diner reviews from the past four months. We sort the results by location and category to help you discover new favorite restaurants.

    The latest listing has B’game winning three of the ten spots on the Peninsula. Two are well-known, long-time stalwarts in town: Cafe Figaro and Rocca–both on the “value” commercial street- Broadway. The third one is new (at least to me) and also on B’way at Paloma. Nepalese restaurant:

    Himali Bistro is a culinary delight that blends the vibrant spices and traditional cooking techniques of Nepali and Indian cuisine to transport your taste buds on a flavorful journey inspired by the majestic Himalayan region. At this modern restaurant, each dish is crafted with care and expertise to evoke the essence of the mountains, offering a fusion of unique flavors that pay homage to the diverse culinary heritage of the region.

    The newest entrant to the B’way dining scene is also on the “value” end of the spectrum. Patty’s Diner is going for the ’50s vibe and has a $9.50 smashburger that you can upgrade to Wagyu for an additional 4 bucks. I’ll be in soon to check out the Philly Cheesesteak using ribeye for $16.

    The last new entrant hasn’t opened yet, but that didn’t stop the SF Comicle from running a full-page “review” in the Sunday edition! Taking over the Flights space (or Left at Albuquerque or Nathan’s depending on how far back in time you want to go) is Amado. The Comicle calls it an “elegant new Mexican restaurant) here. Sounds good. Our scene doesn’t get much love from Comicle reviewers, so Amado must have something going for it.

  • Menlo Park: Drawing rave reviews

    The newish SF Standard is breaking through the SF Comicle news cycle with some different reporting and a conversational style. I get a daily email and click through to interesting pieces which, so far, have been free. They gave a two-thumbs-up to the changes happening in Menlo Park regarding housing and downtown vibrancy especially regarding the restaurant scene. Under this headline

    How a sleepy Peninsula suburb became the Bay Area’s hottest homebuying market

    The Standard notes some interesting things about MP’s Menlo Oaks neighborhood re-development that contrast with B’game.

    The small, tree-lined enclave is pocked with active job sites. Foundations have been poured where modest ranch homes once stood. The transformation has been swift and, for builders and sellers, wildly lucrative. Home values in Menlo Oaks are at all-time highs, according to Zillow, driven by an influx of luxury developers rebuilding the neighborhood house by house.

    The typical home is just shy of $3.2 million, a 4.2% increase over the pandemic-era peak. It’s the biggest price pop across the entire Bay Area. And Menlo Oaks has plenty of company. Of the seven Bay Area neighborhoods currently at their highest-ever values, five are in Menlo Park, according to Zillow’s data.

    It’s hip to be square, at least for home builders. Menlo’s flat, right-angled lots are easy to build on, and the city’s planning process is fairly straightforward by Bay Area standards. A developer who gets one design approved can build others like it fairly quickly.

    Most of the suburb’s housing stock is post-war, meaning demolishing a building won’t bring the same preservationist outrage as tearing down a Victorian. (Or a mostly original Arts & Crafts bungalow, Mission style, Tudor, Eichler or French Normandy as we have in B’game)

    “The good part about having kind of uninteresting architecture is that no one minds,” said Sotheby’s agent Chris Iverson. “‘Oh, you knocked down a ranch house and built a modern farmhouse? OK.’”

    The piece highlights one big developer, Thomas James Homes, that has been very active in Menlo Park (more than 50 projects). I see them scraping the occasional house here in B’game too. But the major difference is the commercial uptick in MP.

    The demographic shift (meaning Boomers selling); Springline’s importation of San Francisco brands like Burma Love, Che Fico, and Barebottle Brewing; plus cultural events at the Guild Theatre, bring a “daily energy” that makes the city feel vibrant well beyond the workday.

    We could use some of that culinary uplift and the Guild Theatre is a nice venue with some fun entertainment that we desperately need, but at the end of the day maybe we’re better off not attracting the scrapers.

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