If you walk down Park Road on a weekday evening, you can see ducks hanging through a kitchen window at 222 Park Road. They dry for a week before they reach the dining room. SFGATE reported that passersby can see the aging rack from the sidewalk. The restaurant offers six of these ducks a night, and you have to order one ahead. The building behind that window was Burlingame's main post office. Some time ago it sat on stilts about 120 feet from where it stands today.
The Old Post Office opened October 1, 2026, about six months after the Town Square's April 2 ribbon-cutting. The two openings have the same origin. The square's plans put a Park Road event terrace directly in front of the historic post office. The lobby was always meant to be the square's front room. Preservation rules decided most of what a restaurant could do with it.
The lobby had to leave before the square could open
The building went up in 1941 and 1942 under the New Deal-era federal program for new post offices. Ulysses Floyd Ribble's competition-winning design blends Spanish Eclectic style with Art Deco details. Los Angeles sculptor James Hanson made the matching cast-stone panels at the entrance, called "The Letter." The interior got marble wainscoting, terrazzo, federal-star motifs and brass service windows. All of this comes from a historic analysis the City commissioned in 2020.
Mail service ended there almost 12 years ago. The Postal Service announced that the 220 Park Road facility would close January 17, 2015, with retail counters and P.O. boxes moving to 329 Primrose Road. The release said the building had been sold the previous September. In 2020, parts of the building were added to Burlingame's historic resources register. That listing locked in the lobby, and the lobby then created an engineering problem.
The new project needed an underground garage beneath the site. The San Mateo Daily Journal reported that Garden City Construction owner Jim Salata thought digging under the lobby in place would be a "nightmare to support laterally" because the space is long and narrow. So the crews cut through the concrete walls and foundation to separate the lobby from the rest of the building. They lifted it on 80 synchronized hydraulic jacks and slid the roughly 1,000-ton structure about 120 feet north onto the next-door parking lot, front courtyard and steps included. Later, the lobby went back to its original spot and was joined to the new six-story building behind it.
Why the lobby became a restaurant and not housing
The current plan was not the first. In January 2020, the Daily Journal reported that developer Sares Regis told city officials it preferred offices and retail over earlier housing proposals. The company said housing built around the preservation requirements would not pencil out financially. Officials saw offices as a better fit next to the planned plaza, though some worried about the building's height. According to the Daily Journal's coverage of the square's opening, the project that came out of that, called 220 Park, puts 185,000 square feet of office space across six floors and 17,000 square feet of retail behind the restored lobby. Sweetgreen and Local Kitchens are among its retail tenants.
At the square's April opening, then-Mayor Michael Brownrigg put the project in a longer timeline. The Burlingame Voice published excerpts of his 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."
He traced the square back to the 2010 Downtown Plan, which came out of community meetings held during the Great Recession. The Town Square sits on former City Parking Lot E, between Park Road and Lorton Avenue, right next to the post office lot. The Voice's writer ended that post saying he couldn't wait "for the restaurant that is the last remaining bit of the project." That restaurant has now been open for seven weeks.
The building decided much of the menu's setting
Tim Stannard, founding partner and president of Bacchus Management Group, first saw the building in January 2023. It was still on stilts at the time. He told the Daily Journal that he got in by climbing a ladder and going through a window. He signed a lease soon after and began working with the city and its preservation architects under the rules that come with a historic building. Bacchus also runs the Village Pub in Woodside and Selby's in Atherton.
Because of the building's historic status, the lobby's original features could not be changed, according to SFGATE. That includes the locally quarried marble wainscoting, the brass-inlaid terrazzo, the brass teller windows and the individual mailboxes. The designers worked around them. In the 92-seat dining room, 600-pound chandeliers hang from a 25-foot ceiling, and 350 yards of brown-sugar mohair cover the walls above the marble. The old postmaster's office is now the 22-seat Postmaster's Bar, with herringbone floors and a coffered ceiling.
Executive chef Jonathan Granada spent eight years in Thomas Keller's kitchens at Bouchon and the French Laundry. He describes the food as contemporary American with Asian and French influences. The building affects the cooking too. Granada told the Daily Journal that he keeps "a 1940s building or old-school techniques" in mind when he develops and presents dishes. His duck takes 10 days from start to finish. It is dipped in maltose, roasted in a custom oven and carved at the table. Bacchus has said it is aiming for a Michelin star.
Four ways to use the room
In the Daily Journal's opening-week coverage, Stannard said the restaurant should work for an anniversary dinner and also for "a cheeseburger in the bar." Its formats cover that range:
| Format | When | Price at opening | Good to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Postmaster's Bar | During regular restaurant hours | À la carte; the burger was $27 | First come, first served |
| Weekday lunch | Monday through Friday | $55 fixed menu | Started in mid-October |
| Weekend brunch | Saturday and Sunday | $70 fixed menu | Started in mid-October |
| Dinner | Nightly | $120 prix fixe | Duck is preorder only, six per night |
The restaurant's reservations page lists the service schedule, and you can also book by calling 650.502.1000. The bar is the easiest option on short notice. It takes walk-ins, and it is the one room in the building that started out as a private office, not a public counter. Eater SF reported that the duck has to be bought along with the reservation, so for a birthday dinner, it is better to book days ahead.
The building is not finished yet. SFGATE reported plans for a 3,000-square-foot glass solarium with 60 patio seats, scheduled for spring 2027.
The square around the lobby, through early December
The lobby now draws people to the square at dinner, and the blocks around it have been filling in at other hours. Marufuku Ramen opened October 11 at 225 Lorton Avenue, on the far side of the square. It serves Hakata-style tonkotsu ramen on weekdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m., and all day from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends, according to the Burlingame-Hillsborough Times. A bowl at Marufuku and a seat at the Postmaster's Bar are now a short walk apart across the former Lot E.
The holiday season starts in two weeks. On the Downtown Burlingame events calendar:
- Wednesday, December 2, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Penflora's Holiday Wreaths workshop includes materials, instruction and warm cider. Tickets are sold through November 29.
- Friday, December 4, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. At Winterfest in Burlingame, Downtown Burlingame and City of Burlingame Parks and Recreation host the traditional tree lighting, followed by a small train ride around Burlingame Avenue and hot chocolate.
Winterfest ends at 7:30, while dinner at The Old Post Office runs until 10 p.m. That leaves time for a table on Park Road after the tree lighting. For a longer look at how the square's first season came together, read our earlier post on what changed around the new Town Square. Our Burlingame neighborhood guide covers the rest of downtown.
A historic building on its own original site, preserved down to the teller windows, is the kind of story that can carry a whole listing. If you own a Burlingame home with its own history worth telling, Maria Afzal Real Estate Group can help you tell it through cinematic video, photography and print. Request a complimentary luxury marketing consultation.
