Peninsula a surprise find south of S.F.
November 7, 2015 Updated: November 8, 2015 1:02am
Dyed-in-the-wool San Franciscans, old and new, are famous snobs. It’s The City. New York without the attitude. So it was with some hesitation that we joined a gastronomic expedition to the Peninsula organized by some Berkeley friends.
The Peninsula. Isn’t that where expatriate San Franciscans-turned-suburbanites live? Isn’t that where the Google buses go? Is there civilized life south of the County Line?
Well, we found out. It was an eye-opener. We started in San Carlos, where the railroad station resembling a stone Victorian cottage has been turned into a restaurant. It’s a symbol, in a way. On the Peninsula, what is old has been turned into something new and different.
We stopped in at the Orchid Room on Laurel Street, a block or so away, for a real eye-opener, this time a Bloody Mary. Nothing special here — a dive bar like you used to see in San Francisco before the city got all fancied up.
Surprising street
But Laurel Street was a surprise, lined with shops and restaurants, a bit like one of the better neighborhood streets in that large town to the north.
Onward, our tour went: to Redwood City, into Palo Alto and even to Castro Street in far Mountain View, where we gave the dinner menu at St. Stephen’s Green a vote of confidence.
It was all lively, civilized, and young. Back home the next day, you think it over. San Francisco looks a little shabby by comparison.
Intrigued, your humble Native Son returned for another look, this time at Redwood City, the county seat, a town complete with a triumphal gateway arch: REDWOOD CITY Climate Best by Government Test. I’ve always liked that: A town with a bit of an edge, a town like Reno, the biggest little city, like Modesto, which has water, wealth, contentment and health.
Mitch Postel, president of the San Mateo County Historical Association, which has its headquarters in the old county courthouse, was the guide.
When it opened more than 100 years ago, the old courthouse was a civic showpiece, complete with a 70-foot-high dome with 38,240 pieces of stained glass, Corinthian columns and grand ceremonial courtrooms. The whole county government could fit into a single building.
Now it’s a museum, with a history of the county from the Spanish days to what is now a very different Peninsula.
San Mateo County can make the case that when the first San Francisco tycoons built country estates and gave Anglo names to some of the towns — Millbrae, Burlingame, Belmont, Atherton — they became the West’s first surburbanites. And built the West’s first commuter railroad.
After World War II, the subdividers came. There is a whole room in the museum about that period. It’s called “Living the California Dream,” starring the fabled single-family suburban home, such midcentury wonders as a humble telephone booth and a mint condition 1956 Chrysler Imperial, a sleek monster of a car.
There are other things in the museum: a whimsical display of the county’s baseball history, including the story of the heyday of semi-pro ball on the Peninsula, and such oddments as bicycle baseball played for years as a fundraiser for the Burlingame Fire Department.
Great museum
There is a lot about high tech, too. After all, the Peninsula is on the northern end of Silicon Valley and much of the technology was developed there.
It’s a great museum, part dead serious, part simple fun, all worthwhile. One of the best is an exhibit on Mavericks, the cathedral of surfing. You can stand on a surfboard in the exhibit and take a virtual ride, dipping and swooping and wiping out.
One wonders how San Mateo County could build a history museum like this and the fabulous city of San Francisco could not.
But the biggest exhibit of life on the Peninsula is outside the museum and across the street. Redwood City’s downtown used to be pretty dismal, Postel said. And now look.
Theater district
Stretching along Broadway is Redwood City’s theater district, which includes the Fox, a survivor of the golden age of movie palaces and a huge new movie multiplex. A street named Theater Way is lined with restaurants. Many people eating outside. After all, the climate is best.
At the end of Theater Way, a big new building is getting set to open. The tenant will be Box, an online storage company. It will bring 1,700 jobs to town.
It’s a new Peninsula. Even a San Francisco snob would be impressed.
Carl Nolte is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His column appears every Sunday. E-mail: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carlnoltesf
