A downtown favorite, now closed
Rave Burger
144 E 3rd Ave, Downtown
A downtown gourmet burger joint on East 3rd that locals still bring up years later, the way you only do for a place you actually loved. The one people miss most is the burger piled with crispy fried onions and jalapeños. It built up hundreds of reviews and a loyal following before it closed, and if the r/SanMateo burger thread is any measure, plenty of the town would take it back in a heartbeat.
Rave came up again and again when we asked San Mateo for its best burger. Some of the best answers are the ones already gone.
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1934 – 2008
Bay Meadows Racetrack
S Delaware St (now the Bay Meadows neighborhood)
For nearly seventy-five years, Bay Meadows was San Mateo's grandstand. It opened in 1934 as California's premier thoroughbred track, the only major West Coast course to run straight through World War II, and the place where Seabiscuit won back-to-back handicaps in 1937 and 1938. It gave racing the photo-finish camera and the enclosed electric starting gate before the rest of the sport caught up. But a lot of locals remember it as a family day out as much as a racetrack: while the parents watched from the grandstands, the kids would head through the tunnel under the track to the playground out on the infield, and some even remember a few holes of golf out there. The last race was run on August 17, 2008.
The grounds live on as the Bay Meadows neighborhood beside the Hillsdale Caltrain station, where new parks and playgrounds keep the old ground a gathering place.
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For decades · now closed
Shore-Vu Club
596 S Norfolk St, Shoreview
The neighborhood dive bar at the far end of the Shoreview strip on South Norfolk, the kind of place where the regulars knew each other and the bartender knew the regulars. Pool tables in the back, a bit of outdoor seating, and, going way back, its own plastic drink tokens stamped for a free round. It ran for decades as Club Shore-Vu before finally calling last call.
Drank a round at the Shore-Vu, or remember when it opened and closed? Send us your story and we'll fill in the years.
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Purity → Villa Foods → Key Market → Chavez
Key Market
Shoreview Shopping Center, S Norfolk St
The grocery that anchored the Shoreview Shopping Center through a whole run of names. Old-timers knew it as Purity Market back in the 1960s, then Villa Foods through the seventies into the early eighties, and for a lot of people it will always be Key Market. Whatever the sign said, the deli counter was the draw. The sandwiches were the stuff of legend for the kids who grew up on Patricia, Fallon, and Dakota. The space still sells groceries today as Chavez Market.
The corner still feeds the neighborhood, but a lot of San Mateo grew up on Key Market's deli.
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Now condos
All American Market
S Norfolk St, across from Shoreview Shopping Center
The neighborhood grocery that stood just across Norfolk Street from the Shoreview Shopping Center, a second market within sight of the first. Locals shopped it for years before it closed, and the lot where it stood is residential condos now.
Remember All American Market, the years and what you'd pick up there? Send it our way.
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Now closed
Chicken Unlimited
9th Ave & B St, Downtown
The fried-chicken spot at the corner of 9th and B that fed a generation of San Mateans before it closed. The written record is thin, but the name still rings a bell for anyone who ate there.
It was where San Mateo families went for fried chicken that was not KFC, the kind of place a kid looked forward to.
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A Coyote Point rite of passage
Magic Mountain Playground
Coyote Point Recreation Area
The infamous concrete playground at Coyote Point, equal parts wonderland and hazard. Its claim to fame was a set of long concrete slides that kids rode down on flattened cardboard boxes, and the daredevils swore that tossing a handful of sand down first made you go faster. A whole generation of scraped knees and giant grins came off that hill.
If you rode those slides, you already know. Share your cardboard-and-sand stories.
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1964 – 1997
The Castaway Restaurant
Coyote Point
The special-occasion restaurant perched at Coyote Point, with wide views out over the bay and a tropical, tiki-era feel. For more than thirty years it was where San Mateo went to celebrate: anniversaries, graduations, prom dinners, a nice night out by the water. It served its last meal in 1997.
Celebrated something at the Castaway? Tell us the occasion.
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A downtown cornerstone · into the 1980s
Levy Brothers
4th Ave & Ellsworth, Downtown
For generations, Levy Brothers was the department store of downtown San Mateo, a Peninsula institution on the corner of 4th and Ellsworth. It was where families went for clothes, gifts, and the whole downtown shopping ritual before the malls pulled everyone away. By the mid-1980s it had closed, and downtown lost one of its anchors.
Shopped at Levy's? Tell us the exact year it closed and what you'd go there for.
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Now a furniture store
Hillsdale Cinema
Across from Hillsdale Shopping Center
The movie theater that sat right across from the Hillsdale mall, where a lot of San Mateo teenagers spent their weekends. The screens are long gone and the building is a furniture store now, but plenty of first dates and Friday nights happened under that marquee.
The screens are gone, but the movies aren't: Return of the Jedi, Back to the Future, Terminator 2, and the odd late-night pick like The Crow or Bride of Chucky.
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Now closed
QFI Market
San Mateo
A San Mateo neighborhood grocery that has since closed its doors. The written record is thin, but the name stuck with the locals who shopped it.
Remember QFI, where it stood and what years it ran? Fill us in and we'll tell it right.
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Founded 1880s · a hometown daily for generations
San Mateo Times
San Mateo County
For over a century, the San Mateo Times was the paper that landed on Peninsula porches: the local record of the county, the high-school scores, the city-council fights, the obituaries, the department-store ads. Founded in the 1880s, it was San Mateo's hometown daily until it was folded into the larger Bay Area newspaper groups and the San Mateo Times name slipped off the masthead.
The Times told San Mateo's story for generations. Now it's part of ours.
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Downtown movie house · gone
San Mateo Theater
66 3rd Ave, Downtown
The downtown movie house on 3rd Avenue whose marquee was iconic enough to turn up behind Ronald Reagan in a 1966 photo. Kids walked over on their own for ten-cent second-run summer matinees, Annette and Frankie beach movies, and the occasional B horror flick. The London Shop sold men's clothes right next door.
Catch a matinee at the San Mateo Theater? Tell us what was playing.
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1981 – 1995
Fashion Island Mann 6
Fashion Island Blvd
The six-screen cinema at the old Fashion Island mall, where a generation caught their movies, some of them paying for one and quietly slipping into another. The site is part of the Bridgepointe parking lot today.
This was the spot for Batman, Goonies, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Friday the 13th, right there in the mall so you could grab food first and hit the Tilt or Goldmine arcade after.
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Drive-in decades · gone
A&W / Foster's Freeze
El Camino Real, near 27th Ave
The drive-in on El Camino across from Ellingson's, and a whole era of cruising. Carhops on roller skates, root beer floats in frosted mugs, the Papa Burger and the Momma Burger, and strawberry shakes with actual pieces of strawberry. When the Foster's Freeze days ended the owner grilled free steaks to send it off. The corner later became Carozzi's, and then Taxi's with a classic cab parked out front.
Cruised to the A&W? Tell us your order.
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24 hours · gone
Happy Donuts
El Camino Real, just north of 12th Ave
The 24-hour donut shop on El Camino, home of the legendary devil-cake donut and a beacon for anyone out too late or up too early. When it finally closed, the neighborhood loved that big sign enough to rescue and keep it.
Devil cake at two in the morning? You know the one.
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El Camino landmark · gone
Lyon's Restaurant
El Camino Real
The landmark coffee-shop-and-diner on El Camino, right across from the old Pacific recording studio. The kind of all-day booth-and-counter spot the Peninsula had on every other block before they quietly disappeared.
Now: Jack's Restaurant and Bar
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1960s–70s · gone
Shoreview Variety Store
Shoreview Shopping Center
The five-and-dime in the Shoreview center, with the coin-operated horse out front that every kid begged for a ride on, and penny and nickel candy inside. There was even a little post office and a barber shop tucked in the back.
Rode the horse out front? So did we.
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"The big E" · gone
The Emporium
Hillsdale Shopping Center
The Emporium, the big E, one of the Hillsdale anchors and a back-to-school pilgrimage for a couple of generations of San Mateo families. New hires went through famously intense training. The chain folded in the mid-1990s and the name went with it.
Did your back-to-school shopping at the big E? So did everyone.
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Record-store days · gone
Tower Records
San Mateo
Back when buying music meant flipping through bins for a whole afternoon, Tower Records was the spot. One local even met Monty Python's Terry Jones there signing a book. The chain is long gone now, but the memory of that yellow-and-red sign isn't.
Plenty of San Mateo music collections started here, tapes and CDs by the armload, and it was just as good for killing an afternoon flipping the bins to see what was new.
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Family restaurant · gone
The Cinnamon Mill
Delaware St, near the Ross center
A family restaurant in the Delaware Street building near the Ross shopping center, the kind of place people fondly try to recall by name years later. The space later became a Pantry.
Remember the Cinnamon Mill's menu? Fill us in.
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Hillsdale anchor · gone
Mervyn's
Hillsdale Shopping Center
For a couple of decades Mervyn's at Hillsdale was where San Mateo did back-to-school: the wall of Levi's 501s, the racks of acid-washed denim, the affordable everything. It anchored the mall until the chain wound down and the store closed for good.
For a lot of San Mateans, this was the back-to-school clothes trip with your parents. For more than a few, it was also where their very first credit card came from.
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1980s–90s · now another bar
Yuppie Bar
709 South B St
The South B Street bar known for strong, cheap drinks, a carpeted room, free ping pong, and a cast of local legends. The address had been Bucky's, Arnie's, and Joe's in earlier lives, and it is a different bar again today, but the Yuppie years have their own following.
Closed out a night at the Yuppie? Tell us a story, a printable one.
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Now closed
TGIF
across from the mall, near the train station
The spot across from the mall near the train station that locals swear had the best chicken strips around, crispy, with honey mustard for dipping and a pile of fries. It's long gone, but that order still sticks in people's memory.
Remember TGIF's chicken strips? Tell us the years it was around.
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Now closed
Stop N Go
San Mateo
The old Stop N Go, one of those neighborhood convenience stores that always seemed to be there for a soda, a snack, or a quick run, until it wasn't.
Remember which corner the Stop N Go was on? Send it our way.
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1988 – 2024
Sushi Sam's Edomata
218 E 3rd Ave, Downtown
For thirty-six years this was the Peninsula's sushi landmark, the counter people drove across the Bay for. It was famously one of Mark Zuckerberg's favorites; he donated a hundred thousand dollars to help it through the pandemic. Chef-owner Sam Sugiyama served his last plate in December 2024 and retired.
The legacy lives on: Sam's family reopened as Sushi Edomata on 25th Avenue, with his nephew behind the counter.
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2018 – 2025
Wursthall
310 Baldwin Ave, Downtown
The German beer hall from food writer Kenji López-Alt, with house-made sausages and more than twenty-five beers on tap. It put downtown San Mateo on a lot of food-world maps before quietly closing in September 2025.
Its downstairs cocktail bar, Wunderbar, is still pouring.
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1990 – 2014
Ristorante Capellini
310 Baldwin Ave, Downtown
The upscale Italian spot on B and Baldwin that a lot of people credit with kick-starting downtown San Mateo's whole restaurant scene. Aaron Ferer opened it in 1990 because he was tired of everyone driving up to the city for a nice dinner. It ran twenty-four years, some of the staff nearly the whole time, before closing in 2014.
The same Baldwin Avenue corner later became Wursthall, right above.
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1953 – 2020
Talbot's Toyland
B Street & 5th Ave, Downtown
Sixty-six years of San Mateo kids grew up in this toy store, with the bike shop, Talbot's Cyclery, right alongside it. Family-run for generations, it kept expanding into neighboring storefronts until it filled a whole stretch of B Street. When it closed in 2020, it took a piece of four generations' childhoods with it.
A generation blew its birthday money here on Transformers and G.I. Joes, and nobody forgets the train section, with tracks running loops around the store. For plenty of kids it was close enough to walk to.
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1972 – 2019
Trag's Market
303 Baldwin Ave, Downtown
The Tragoutsis family's downtown grocery, the corner market that downtown actually had. After forty-seven years it closed in 2019, and a lot of neighbors felt the loss of a real grocery store you could walk to.
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1982 – 2023
The Fish Market
1855 S Norfolk St
For about forty-one years this was the Peninsula's seafood go-to: the oyster bar, the mesquite grill, the fresh catch on ice. The San Mateo location closed in 2023, ending the chain's long run in the Bay Area.
The brand still operates down in Southern California.
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1982 – 1996
San Mateo Fashion Island
Where Bridgepointe is now
The enclosed mall by the 92 and 101 interchange, with JCPenney, Bullock's, a food court, a multiplex, an indoor ice rink, and the Gold Mine (later Tilt) arcade where half of San Mateo blew their allowance as kids. It struggled almost from the start and closed as a mall in 1996, demolished a few years later. The ice rink, somehow, outlived it all the way to 2013.
The site is the open-air Bridgepointe Shopping Center today. And who else remembers that arcade?
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Closed around 2020
B Street Station
236 S B St, Downtown
A dim, easygoing downtown cocktail spot, Edison bulbs and big communal tables, the kind of place you ended up at without planning to. It closed around 2020.
The Perfect Storm was the drink to order there: rum, ginger syrup, lime, and Perrier.
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2007 – 2016
38th Floor Bar
38 E 25th Ave
It opened as the Mandala Lounge and got its odd name after a Bar Rescue TV makeover in 2015. The fame didn't save it; it closed about a year later, in 2016. A short, strange chapter, but a San Mateo one.
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Bar 12
E 4th Ave
A neighborhood dive on 4th Avenue. The kind of place that doesn't leave much of a paper trail, just regulars who remember it. If you've got the story, we'd love to hear it.
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Wolmer's Music
4th Ave & B, now a phone store
A longtime downtown music shop; the storefront is a T-Mobile now. We couldn't pin down all the dates, so if you remember Wolmer's, help us tell it right.
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1950 – 1988
The Lanai
Inside the Villa Hotel, San Mateo
San Mateo's original tiki temple, tucked inside the old Villa Hotel for thirty-eight years. It went all in: a twenty-foot fish tank, a waterfall wall, an authentic luau pit, and a huge South Seas mural lit to shift from day to night, all under the glow of a neon palm tree out front. When it closed in 1988, its koa tables and tiki decor moved to a little strip-mall spot that didn't last the decade. The real thing, gone but never quite forgotten.
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1950s – tower demolished 2001
The Hillsdale Inn Tower
Along Highway 101, San Mateo
The Hillsdale Inn was a Highway 101 hot spot, and its showpiece was a tower shaped like an air-traffic-control tower, a honeymoon suite floating in the sky. Couples booked the suite-in-the-sky for years, but it sat unused after the mid-1970s and slowly fell apart. Deemed structurally unsafe, the tower came down in April 2001. Some called it a landmark, some called it an eyesore; either way, the skyline lost something.
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Closed around 2021
The Downtown Tiki Lounge
144 S B St, Downtown
A proper tiki bar in the middle of downtown, thatched roofs, dim booths, and rum drinks with little umbrellas. A real local favorite, and the owners were as much of the draw as the decor, genuinely fun people to be around. When it closed, the space was reborn as Fogbird, the bright cocktail lounge there now, so the address carries on even though the tiki torches went out.
San Mateo tiki lore runs in a line: The Lanai, then this, and now Fogbird on the same block.
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1960s – 1997
The Dunfey Hotel
1770 S Amphlett Blvd, Hayward Park
Long before it was the San Mateo Marriott, this hotel on Amphlett looked like a Tudor castle. It started life in the 1960s as the Royal Coach Inn, all turrets and old-world theming, and later became the Dunfey Hotel. It hosted weddings and receptions, and in August 1983 it quietly made history as the site of Apple's first software developers conference, the ancestor of today's WWDC. Locals also remember its common areas rented out for third-party discount electronics sales, the kind of traveling expo the Cow Palace ran in the same era.
A 1997 renovation traded the castle for a Spanish-villa look and reopened it as the Regency Plaza, later a Marriott. That hotel closed in 2024 and the site has sat fenced off since, with a 234-unit housing development proposed to replace it. The castle a lot of us grew up driving past is long gone.
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Closed around 2025
M & H Market (aka Fred's Market)
159 N Kingston St
The corner neighborhood market on Kingston, known to different generations as M & H Market and as Fred's, run for years by Henry Herro. Fresh Mexican bread delivered like clockwork, a candy counter the kids remember, and the everyday stuff the block ran on. The kind of little store a neighborhood doesn't realize it needs until it's gone.
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Long since closed
Telecenter
1830 S Delaware St
The go-to San Mateo spot for appliances, TVs, and electronics, back when you bought that stuff in person from people who knew your name. Long gone now, but ask around and someone will still finish the slogan for you.
"If it's not from Telecenter, you paid too much."
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1991 – 2016
Tres Amigos
243 S B St, Downtown
A downtown taqueria that fed B Street for more than twenty-five years before it lost its lease and served its last tacos on Christmas Day, 2016. One of the anchors of the old B Street 'amigos' lineup, missed by everyone who had a regular order there.
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1949 – 2005
The Palm Theatre
1705 Palm Ave
It opened in 1949 as a proper neighborhood movie house, was briefly the Paris Theater, and then spent its last thirty years as San Mateo's one and only adults-only cinema (we'll leave it there). It came down in 2005 and condos went up, though a few of the Palm's etched-glass panels were saved and tucked into the new building's rec room.
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1947 – 2001
The Rolladium
863 Amphlett Blvd, by Highway 101
The Peninsula's roller rink, right off 101, where generations learned to skate and blew out birthday candles. Its maple floor was a survivor, salvaged from an earlier rink that burned in the 1940s and skated on for something like ninety years. The wheels stopped for good in 2001.
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The Broiler
1855 S Delaware St
By local memory, the restaurant that held the South Delaware spot now home to The Pantry. We couldn't dig up the dates, so if you ate at The Broiler, help us fill in its story.
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19th Avenue Bowl
San Mateo
A mid-century San Mateo bowling alley, remembered on old matchbooks and by anyone who rolled a home game there. It's long gone, and the exact address and years have gotten foggy, so if you remember 19th Avenue Bowl, set us straight.
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2000 – 2018
Kingfish
201 S B St (the House of Merkel), Downtown
The seafood restaurant and bar that was the last tenant of the historic House of Merkel at Morse's Corner, a building that had been, over the decades, a cigar store, a tailor, an antique shop, Redbird Brewery, and Barley & Hopps before it. Kingfish closed in 2018 after about eighteen years; the building sold for over ten million and holds offices now.
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Gone by 2006
The Good Guys
41 W Hillsdale Blvd
The Bay Area electronics chain half of us bought our first stereo or TV from. The San Mateo store started out on El Camino before moving to Hillsdale Boulevard, right by Tower Records, where the two eventually shared a roof as a 'WOW!' superstore. When the whole chain was sold off, the stores closed by 2006, taking a piece of Hillsdale, and Tower Records, down with them.
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Closed in recent years
Byron's Shoes
101 E 4th Ave, Downtown
The downtown shoe store where San Mateo got fitted for years, run by Byron Eisenberg. It's gone now, though fittingly another shoe shop, Footwear etc., stepped into the same 4th Avenue spot.
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Closed 2023
San Mateo Electronics
16 W 42nd Ave
The old-school electronics and parts shop, the place you went for a fuse, a cable, an odd little component, and advice from someone who actually knew what they were talking about. When it finally closed, the Daily Journal called it the end of an era, because it was.
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1941 – 1982 · now an office building
Manor Theatre
32 W 25th Ave
The Manor Theatre lit up 32 West 25th Avenue from 1941 to 1982, one of the neighborhood movie houses that helped make 25th Avenue San Mateo's second downtown. Plenty of locals still remember catching summer matinees here as kids. The building stands, but it is an office now.
Caught a movie at the Manor? Tell us what was playing.
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1931 – 1950s
Baywood Theater
B Street
A grand single-screen house on B Street that seated over a thousand in its day. It ran from 1931 into the 1950s before the space became a Thrifty and, later, retail.
Remember the Baywood? We'd love the details.
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1915 – 1933
Regent Theater
San Mateo Dr & Baldwin
One of San Mateo's earliest movie houses, a 600-seat single screen at San Mateo Drive and Baldwin. It ran from 1915 to 1933, later served as a Fox West Coast warehouse, and is offices today.
A silent-era memory of the Regent? Share it.
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1915 – 1918
Hart's Theater
B Street
One of the very first movie theaters in town, a 350-seat house on B Street that ran only from 1915 to 1918. The Attic Restaurant later took the spot.
Know more about Hart's? Help us fill it in.
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1953 – 1954
Studio Drive-In
Peninsula Ave
A short-lived drive-in on Peninsula Avenue with room for 500 cars and a novel enclosed glass viewing room. Noise complaints shut it down almost as fast as it opened.
Caught a show at the Studio? Rare memory, send it.
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1950 – 1951
19th Ave Drive-In
Grant & 19th
The drive-in at Grant and 19th that could pack in up to 770 cars for its brief run around 1950. The lot later became a Payless, then Rite Aid and a Handy Man, and it is housing today.
Remember the 19th Ave Drive-In? Tell us.
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1943 – 1988
Vince's Italian & Seafood
16th & El Camino Real
For forty-five years Vince's was the family Italian-and-seafood spot at 16th and El Camino, with Mrs. Licata greeting guests, a massive swordfish mounted on the wall, and a Shirley Temple that kids still remember. It served its last plate in 1988.
Dinner at Vince's? Tell us your table order.
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1970s–80s
The Magic Pan
Hillsdale Shopping Center
The creperie at Hillsdale famous for its spinach-souffle crepe, the monte cristo, the chantilly crepe, and a salad with mandarin oranges and almonds. A lot of birthday lunches happened in those booths before the chain faded away.
Order a crepe at the Magic Pan? Which one?
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1956 – 2010s
Esposto's Delicatessen
Borel Square / South B St
The delicatessen and caterer that fed San Mateo weddings and events for over half a century, a South B Street go-to. It closed after a landlord raised the rent, though the family has since resurfaced out by the airport.
Esposto's catered your wedding? We'd love the story.
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1970s–90s
Santini's Pizza
2214 El Camino Real, near 25th
Widely sworn to be the best pizza San Mateo ever had, everything made from scratch at 2214 El Camino. People still say they can taste it just thinking about it. Long gone, and never quite replaced.
Was Santini's really the best? Settle it for us.
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1947 – 1984
Ellingson's Sporting Goods
El Camino Real (later 27th Ave)
The family-owned hunting, fishing, and outdoor store that a generation of kids remembers most for the taxidermy: buffalo heads, a pilot bear in a glass case, and a giant Kodiak bear that terrified the little ones. It is where you got your first baseball glove or WristRocket, from 1947 until it closed in 1984.
Scared of the big bear at Ellingson's? You weren't alone.
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Downtown anchor · gone
Roos Bros / Roos Atkins
4th Ave, Downtown
A downtown 4th Avenue clothing anchor and many a teenager's first job, back before it became Roos Atkins and, eventually, history. Part of the old run of 4th Ave shops alongside Woolworth and Blum's.
First job at Roos? Tell us about it.
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Five-and-dime · gone
F.W. Woolworth
4th Ave, Downtown
The classic downtown five-and-dime on 4th Avenue: the lunch counter, the candy, a little bit of everything. Woolworth shuttered its stores nationwide in the 1990s, and downtown lost a fixture.
Lunch at the Woolworth counter? We remember.
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1970s–80s
Pacific Stereo
1114 S El Camino Real
The place a lot of San Mateo bought its first home and car stereo, at 1114 South El Camino, in the building that had been the Gaslight before it. The chain is long gone now.
Bought your first stereo at Pacific? Tell us the setup.
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Local clothier · gone
Schneider's
San Mateo (now a Peet's)
A well-known local clothier carrying apparel for men, boys, and ladies, often mentioned in the same breath as Levy Brothers. The spot pours coffee as a Peet's today.
Shopped Schneider's? Tell us what you'd pick up.
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Late 1960s–70s
Unimart (Parkview Gem)
Grant Ave near 101 & 19th
A monster-size discount department store off Grant near the freeway, once known as Parkview Gem, where Santa famously arrived by helicopter into the parking lot at Christmas. The site is the Cross Winds office park and YMCA now.
See Santa's helicopter land at Unimart? Best memory.
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1960s · now condos
Shop Rite Market
5th & B St, Downtown
The downtown market at the corner of 5th and B, run by the same family behind Zorba's. The site is condos today.
Remember Shop Rite? Fill in the years for us.
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Beloved family market · gone
Petrini's Market
Hillsdale & 42nd Ave
A great family market with the motto Where Shopping is a Pleasure, where more than a few locals recall relatives working the meat department. Gone now, but fondly remembered.
Family work at Petrini's? We'd love to hear it.
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Founded 1968 · now a spa store
Pacific Recording Studio
1737 S El Camino Real
The Bay Area's first 16-track recording studio, opened in 1968 at 1737 South El Camino, and a genuine piece of music history: Santana, the Grateful Dead, the Doobie Brothers, and Van Morrison all recorded here. Lyon's diner sat right across El Camino. The building is a spa-supply store today.
Knew someone who recorded at Pacific? We want that story.
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Closed 2025 · now Blue Moon Bar
Moon's Family Sports Pub
215 S B St
The downtown sports pub at 215 South B Street, an offshoot of the legendary Moon McShane's Irish pub over in Burlingame. A family sports bar for game days, pints, and big-screen crowds until it closed in 2025. The corner lives on as Blue Moon Bar today.
Closed a tab at Moon's? Share the memory.
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Closed · now Golden Bell Donuts
Wild Bill's Donuts
1500 E 3rd Ave, at Norfolk
A beloved neighborhood donut counter at 3rd and Norfolk for years, the kind of early-morning stop regulars swore by. The shop lives on as Golden Bell Donuts today, but plenty of locals still remember it as Wild Bill's.
Have a Wild Bill's memory? We'd love to hear it.
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Closed around 2000 after 51 years · now a BevMo
Village Foods
E Hillsdale Blvd
A neighborhood grocery and butcher shop run for over half a century by the Henning family. Hank Henning, born in Germany in 1913, bought the meat department in 1950 and the grocery about a decade later, then ran it with his sons for 51 years in the same spot, with three of his nine kids working the meat counter. It closed around 2000 when the building owner wanted a bulk liquor store in its place, and a BevMo stands there today.
Shopped at Village Foods, or knew the Hennings? We would love the story.
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1920s · one of the first Black-owned businesses in San Mateo
Noah's Cafeteria
139 S B Street (later moved to 3rd Ave)
In the 1920s, this South B Street spot was Noah's Cafeteria, run by one of the first known Black businessmen in San Mateo. Well known across the area and with a growing following, Noah later moved his restaurant up to Third Avenue.
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Cigar store from 1918 · a downtown gathering place for 50+ years
The House of Merkel
201 S B Street (building still stands)
German immigrants Carl and Cuna Merkel opened a cigar store here in 1918, then built the Art Deco landmark that still stands and filled it with a soda fountain, confectionary, liquor store, billiard parlor, and even horse betting. Something for all ages, it was a downtown gathering place for over fifty years, and many still call it the most significant historic building in San Mateo.
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1935 – 1957 · moved to Hillsdale Mall
J.J. Newberry
71 E 3rd Ave
The five-and-dime anchored East Third Avenue from 1935 until 1957, when it followed the shoppers south to the brand-new Hillsdale Mall, part of the great downtown-to-mall shift that quietly reshaped San Mateo.
Remember Newberry's lunch counter? Tell us.
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A longtime 25th Avenue neighborhood grocery
Humphrey's Market
25th Avenue area
One of the neighborhood markets that made 25th Avenue a place you could run every errand without leaving the block. Locals still bring it up when they talk about the old strip.
Shopped at Humphrey's? Help us fill in the story.
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Former 25th Ave market · now a Goodwill
Draeger's on 25th Avenue
25th Avenue
The Peninsula grocery family Draeger's once ran a market on 25th Avenue, a fixture of the corridor for years. The space is a Goodwill today. Draeger's itself carries on with its market over in downtown San Mateo.
Remember the 25th Avenue Draeger's? We would love the details.
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1905 – 2009 · now Hassett Hardware
Wisnom's Hardware
Downtown San Mateo · 545 First Ave
When the Wisnom brothers opened Wisnom-Bonner Hardware in 1905, San Mateo was a town of about 500 people and they were the only hardware store around. The family went back further still: Robert Wisnom had arrived in 1868 and had a hand in building some of downtown's landmarks, from the Levy Brothers store to the St. Matthew Hotel. For more than a century, through four generations, Wisnom's was where San Mateo went for a part, a tool, or an answer. In 2009 the family passed it to the Hassett family, longtime hardware people themselves, so the institution would keep going. It did. The store still stands downtown, still sells hardware, still runs on the same idea, just under the Hassett name now.
The Wisnom sign came down in 2009, but San Mateo never lost its downtown hardware store.
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1968 – 2020
Nini's Coffee Shop
1000 N Idaho St, North Central
A corner coffee shop and diner that anchored North Central for 52 years. It began in San Francisco in 1955 and moved to this San Mateo corner in 1968, run by Nini and Wally Swartz, with Rick Swartz taking over in 1973. For a certain kind of San Matean, breakfast just meant Nini's.
The space reopened as Kiki's Coffee Shop, a newer take that kept the name's shape.
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84 years downtown · closed July 24, 2022
Wing Fat
500 E 3rd Ave, Downtown
A Cantonese cornerstone of downtown San Mateo, founded by Fat Quock, who came from Guangdong. On its last day the char siu oven built back in the 1940s was still standing, and silk tapestries from the original opening still hung on the walls.
A separately owned New Wing Fat operates a block away. It shares the name, but not the ownership or the history.
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closed 2012
Fresh Choice
1952 S El Camino Real
The make-your-own salad, soup, and buffet spot that fed countless San Mateo lunches. Founded in Sunnyvale in 1986 and built around a fifty-foot salad bar with six soups made fresh daily. It went dark in 2012 when the whole chain shut down.
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30+ years · closed 2022
Windy City Pizza & BBQ
35 Bovet Rd, Hayward Park
San Mateo's taste of Chicago for more than thirty years, deep-dish pizza and barbecue on Bovet Road since the early 1990s. Its own farewell note opened, “After 30+ years, Windy City Pizza & BBQ has closed its doors.” Regulars still talk about the deep dish they never got to order one last time.
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28 years · now closed
231 Ellsworth
231 S Ellsworth Ave, Downtown
For 28 years, downtown San Mateo's white-tablecloth special-occasion restaurant, with waiters in black suits serving Osetra caviar with quail egg, venison loin, and oxtail ravioli. The kind of place you saved for an anniversary.
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