On an opening-week night at the Old Post Office, a man walked the full length of the dining room to show the staff the P.O. box he used to rent. SFGATE reported the moment in its review. His box is still on the wall, because the restaurant was not allowed to remove it.
That rule explains most of what is new in downtown Burlingame this fall. The two most anticipated food openings near Burlingame Avenue are both going into protected civic buildings. One is the former Burlingame Main Post Office on Park Road. The other is the 1939 depot at 1080 Howard Avenue. In each case the building decided what kind of place it could become, and the operators built around it.
What the Post Office Would Not Let Anyone Change
The Old Post Office opened October 1 at 222 Park Road, next to the new Town Square. It comes from Bacchus Management Group, the team behind Spruce in San Francisco, Selby's in Atherton and the Village Pub in Woodside. The building has historic status, so the original lobby stayed as it was when Bacchus turned it into a dining room. That means locally quarried marble wainscoting, terrazzo floors inlaid with brass, and the brass teller windows and mailboxes.
The designers worked with what they inherited. The dining room seats 92 under a 25-foot ceiling, with 600-pound chandeliers. About 350 yards of brown-sugar mohair cover the walls above the marble. The postmaster's office is now the Postmaster's Bar, a 22-seat room with herringbone floors, a coffered ceiling and wood paneling. The old mail-sorting room became the kitchen. Executive chef Jonathan Granada, who spent eight years at Bouchon and the French Laundry, designed it around a custom duck oven and an aging rack. Ducks hang there for a week, and people walking by can see them through a kitchen window on the sidewalk.
Founding partner Tim Stannard told SFGATE the concept was never really up for debate:
"The building kind of tells you what it wants to be. It does not want to be a burger joint, right? As much as I love burger joints."
He went on to say that the soaring ceilings, 100-year-old brass and aged marble tell you it "wants to be a luxury, beautiful, dramatic restaurant."
Stannard told the San Mateo Daily Journal that the building went up in the late 1930s and opened in 1941. SFGATE gives the date as the early 1940s.
The Building Also Left and Came Back
The U.S. Postal Service sold the building in September 2014 and stopped operating there four months later. In 2021, Dostart Development Company and Sares Regis Group broke ground on 220 Park, the six-story, 185,000-square-foot office and retail building that now stands next door.
The developers needed underground parking, so they moved the post office out of the way. It sat temporarily on the plaza that later became Town Square. Then it went back to its original spot, on top of a newly built two-story garage. Developer Steve Dostart told SFGATE the building weighed 2.2 million pounds and that moving it and setting it back down were challenges he had never faced in his career.
The money came from close to home too. According to SFGATE, Stannard made fewer than 10 phone calls to raise investment, and 99% of the restaurant's investors live in Burlingame and Hillsborough. He called it Bacchus's most expensive restaurant to open and its easiest to fund.
Four Ways Into the Same Room
The dining room serves a $120 three-course prix fixe. You don't have to book that to see the room. Lunch began October 12 and brunch begins October 17, so by now every service is running.
| Way in | When | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Dining room dinner | Nightly, 5 to 10 p.m. | $120 prix fixe with canapé, bread service, starter, entree, dessert and mignardise |
| Postmaster's Bar | During service | A la carte menu, including the $27 Postmaster's Burger with duck-fat fries |
| Weekday lunch | Monday to Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. | Started October 12 |
| Weekend brunch | Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. | Starts October 17 |
The signature dish takes the most planning. The kitchen makes only six dry-aged ducks a night, and you have to preorder by email or phone. The duck is an $80 supplement for two. Sous chef Kira LeMons flambés the sauce at the table, and the bird comes out in four courses that end with the legs served in lettuce cups. The bar menu's burger is also available in the dining room if you ask.
Patio seating is still on the way. A 3,000-square-foot glass solarium with seats for 60 is scheduled for spring 2027.
The Depot on Howard Avenue Gets the Opposite Constraint
The post office got a grand restaurant because it is a grand building. The depot at 1080 Howard Avenue, near the Caltrain station, is a different case. The city owns the building, it dates to 1939, and it has roughly 590 square feet. The post office's restaurant space is 7,000 square feet.
In October 2025, the city asked for proposals for the depot. Under its terms, the tenant pays for every capital improvement and all maintenance, and the historic exterior has to stay. Teresa Gee won the space for a second location of Gigi's Cafe, her sandwich shop at 111 Anza Blvd. That shop ranked No. 14 on Yelp's Top 100 Places to Eat in the U.S. in 2023, and it will stay open. The Burlingame-Hillsborough Times reported that her lease can run up to 15 years: an initial five-year term with two five-year extensions.
The new shop's format comes from the building's size. Gigi's at the Depot will be takeout only, with outdoor seating nearby. Salads will be grab-and-go, there will be no smoothies, and lemonade, tea and coffee will be pre-batched instead of made to order. The signature sandwiches will all carry over, at $16.50 to $26.99. The Thanksgiving Dinner Sandwich, which used to appear only every three months, will be on the depot menu year-round.
The depot has served sandwiches before. Gee told The Almanac that she grew up going to Sam's Italian Sandwich, which operated there for nearly 50 years. She called it "the sandwich shop to go to growing up." She visited owner Rino Betti to tell him the legacy would continue. The new menu includes the Sam Sandwich, with salami, ham and Swiss, named after the old shop.
The opening date has moved more than once. The first target was September. The Daily Journal's August report said by the end of the year. The Almanac's September 2 report said December. December is the latest estimate, and no specific day has been announced. Updates appear at gigiscafeburlingame.com. There's no dedicated parking at the depot, but about 17 metered street spaces sit beside the building and a city garage is one block away.
The Newcomer With No Old Building to Answer To
Opening in an ordinary storefront goes faster. Marufuku Ramen joined the Burlingame Chamber on October 10 and opened the next day at 225 Lorton Ave. It serves Hakata-style tonkotsu, plus chicken paitan, small rice bowls and Japanese appetizers. The published hours are 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. on weekdays, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. straight through on weekends. The chain started in San Francisco's Japantown in 2017 and also has Peninsula locations in Redwood City and Palo Alto.
Marufuku had no teller windows to keep and no exterior to protect, so it simply opened. The post office took from 2014 to 2026 to return as a restaurant, and the depot's timeline is still moving.
The Rest of the Fall Calendar
With the post office open and the depot expected in December, here's what else is on the downtown calendar this season:
- Thursday, October 22, and Thursday, October 29, 3 to 7 p.m. The Burlingame Fresh Market's last two Thursday sessions are on Park Road just off Burlingame Avenue, on the same block as the Old Post Office. The season ends October 29.
- Sunday, October 25, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Downtown Burlingame's Fall Fest has a petting zoo, a choo-choo train, arts and crafts, specialty food vendors, music and a Halloween costume contest for kids and families.
- December, date to be announced. Gigi's at the Depot is expected to open at 1080 Howard Ave.
- Friday, December 4, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Winterfest in Burlingame, hosted by Downtown Burlingame and City of Burlingame Parks and Recreation, starts with the traditional tree lighting, followed by a small train ride around Burlingame Avenue and hot chocolate.
On a market Thursday, an early bar seat at the Postmaster's Bar fits well after a walk down Park Road. The burger is on the bar menu, and the duck has to be preordered by email or phone.
The Gevertz Group is based in Burlingame and watches projects like 220 Park and the depot lease closely. If you want to know how changes like these affect your home's value, The Gevertz Group offers a Personalized Market Consultation.
