Woodside and Points South
– Doug McConnell
Today Carl Bidleman, Jim Wirth and I are cruising down from Marin County to the beautiful Peninsula town of Woodside. Woodside was long a warm-weather escape for San Francisco’s early barons of industry and a lovely leafy horse town. These days, while the horses and old-money barons remain, Woodside has become home to more new billionaires per capita than probably any other town in the world. Silicon Valley and the venture capitalists of Sand Hill Road are right nearby. One of the prime gathering spots for high-tech entrepreneurs (as well as the rest of us) is Buck’s Restaurant in Woodside owned, operated, crafted and conducted by its Impresario-in-Chief, Jamis MacNiven and his wonderful wife, Margaret.
Jamis MacNiven, Roy & Trigger
Visit Buck’s online and in person. You’ll enjoy the whimsy and the creativity, not to mention the food and the company. We’ll include some pictures tomorrow after we lunch with Jamis and do a little business. He’s one of our OpenRoad.TV advisors. But knowing Jamis and us, we’ll do very little business and a lot of story telling and guffawing.
Over the years, we’ve done quite a few stories in and around Woodside, Palo Alto and Silicon Valley. One of our stories, shot a few years ago, took us from Hewlett’s and Packard’s fabled garage to an historical museum and another classic food emporium for burgers and shakes all in Palo Alto. We journeyed in the company of another old friend, Stan Bungar, now a morning anchor on KCBS radio in San Francisco and a star performer in the famous and unforgettable Eyewitness Blues Band. Take a look and listen to Stan and the band online and catch their next performance around town, and see our story with Stan here on OpenRoad.TV.
So much of Woodside’s, Palo Alto’s and the Silicon Valley’s twenty-first century success is due to a little university built in the nineteenth by a former governor of California and principal builder of the western portion of the transcontinental railroad. Leland Stanford was present at Promontory Point, Utah for the hammering of the golden spike that bound America by rail in 1869. Stanford University Hoover Tower has minted quite a bit of gold itself ever since and I urge you explore its campus on your own or on a guided tour. Be sure you get to the top of the. It commands a fine view of the Bay Area. It’s not quite as magnificent as the view from the Campanile on the University of California campus in Berkeley, but that’s another story.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:53 pm
The Alpine Inn on Woodside Road has a great “beer garden” atmosphere frequented by Stanford students and alums for decades. It has a rustic history and great burgers and fries. It is also known by its previous name: “Rosatti’s”. Watch out for bicycles in this area. By the way, the origianl Golden spike mentioned is on display at the Museum on the Stanford campus.
-HalfDomeRick
January 29th, 2011 at 2:54 am
I firmly believe that we can have a healthy environment and a sustainable timber industry. – Frank Murkowski