The bar in back of the dining room at the Old Post Office, a new restaurant inside a renovated old post office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
The bar in back of the dining room at the Old Post Office, a new restaurant inside a renovated old post office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
After more than 25 years and about a dozen restaurants across the Bay Area — including the Michelin-recognized, fine dining establishments Spruce in San Francisco, Selby’s in Atherton and the Village Pub in Woodside — Bacchus Management Group’s latest ranks as its most expensive to launch, according to founding partner and president, Tim Stannard. It was also the hospitality group’s easiest to line up investors for.
That’s because the 7,000-square-foot venue is unlike any other. The Old Post Office restaurant, which opened Oct. 1, is housed in an early 1940s building with Spanish and Art Deco nods. It was previously the Burlingame Main Post Office.
“Buildings like this come around maybe once in a lifetime,” Stannard told me. “Everybody was literally jumping up and down to do it.”
The former post office’s historic status meant that in the lobby turned dining room, original elements like the locally quarried marble wainscoting, terrazzo flooring inlaid with brass, and brass teller windows and individual mailboxes could not be changed.
That was just fine with Stannard. “I fell in love with the building as soon as I saw it,” he said of his initial visit in 2022. “When I walked inside, my jaw dropped.”
The entrance of The Old Post Office, a new restaurant by Bacchus Management Group inside a renovated old post office in Burlingame, Calif. on Sept. 29, 2026.The chandelier in the dining room at The Old Post Office, a new restaurant by Bacchus Management Group inside a renovated old post office in Burlingame, Calif. on Sept. 29, 2026.The dining room at The Old Post Office, a new restaurant by Bacchus Management Group inside a renovated old post office in Burlingame, Calif. on Sept. 29, 2026.Chef Jonathan Granada prepares the table side duck in the dining room at The Old Post Office, a new restaurant by Bacchus Management Group inside a renovated old post office in Burlingame, Calif. on Sept. 29, 2026.
Top left clockwise: The entrance to the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif.; the chandelier in the dining room; chef Jonathan Granada prepares the duck tableside; a view of the dining room. Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Frequent Bacchus collaborators Stephen Brady Design and Left Coast Design Studio made it even more stunning. In the 92-seat dining room, 600-pound chandeliers cascade from the 25-foot-tall ceiling, while chairs and banquettes upholstered in espresso-hued mohair invite guests to settle in. More sumptuous mohair — a whopping 350 yards, the color of brown sugar — covers the walls above that exquisite marble.
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Meanwhile, the postmaster’s office has morphed into the elegant 22-person Postmaster’s Bar. Amid herringbone wood flooring, a coffered ceiling and saddle leather barstools, the wood-paneled walls are adorned with works from San Francisco’s Lost Art Salon, such as a watercolor and an etching by historic artist James Southard, along with black-and-white photographs by the gallery’s cofounder, Gaétan Caron.
A second bar in the back of the dining room has five seats. Patio seating for 60, which will be in a 3,000-square-foot glass-walled solarium that has yet to be constructed, is slated for completion in spring 2027.
Stannard acknowledged that Bacchus is aiming for both a Michelin star and a Wine Spectator Grand Award, which Spruce, Selby’s and the Village Pub have all held. He characterized those spots as “simultaneously neighborhood restaurant and destination worthy.”
In the same vein, the Old Post Office has an a la carte bar menu and a three-course, prix fixe dining room menu. The latter, priced at $120, comprises a canapé (a parmesan tartlet on my opening night visit), bread service (a ridiculously good laminated brioche), a choice of a starter and an entree, dessert (including a cheese option of Point Reyes Quinta flambée), and mignardise, or bite-sized confections. Weekday lunch and weekend brunch will commence mid-October.
Mathew Frantin, the director of bars and spirits for Bacchus, prepares an As Time Goes By cocktail, which includes gin, lemon juice, lime juice and orgeat, at the Postmaster’s Bar in the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
Mathew Frantin, the director of bars and spirits for Bacchus, prepares an As Time Goes By cocktail, which includes gin, lemon juice, lime juice and orgeat, at the Postmaster’s Bar in the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
The private dining room at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
The private dining room at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
The menus represent the firsts that executive chef Jonathan Granada conceived for Bacchus. He joined the group last year, right before the debut of Augustine in San Jose’s Santana Row.
Granada described the fare at the Old Post Office as “contemporary American — kind of a melting pot of what Americans eat nowadays. There’s Asian, French and American influences. There are dishes I’ve done in the past that I really like, that I hold close to me, and there are dishes I’ve never done before.”
Some techniques, he added, were learned during his time in chef Thomas Keller’s kitchens in Yountville. Granada spent a combined eight years at Bouchon and the French Laundry. But a dish that he anticipates becoming a signature — “Our wow, our sizzle,” as he puts it — was inspired by the famous flaming ducks at Taiwan’s three-Michelin-starred Le Palais.
Granada designed the Old Post Office’s kitchen, which was once the mail-sorting room, to include a custom duck oven and an aging rack, where the birds are hung for a week to dry. (From the sidewalk, passersby can see them through a kitchen window.) He trialed numerous ducks before selecting Joe Jurgielewicz & Son’s family farm in Pennsylvania as his supplier.
Granada estimated that over the past six months, he has prepared and tasted at least a hundred ducks as he refined the recipe, which is so arduous that the restaurant currently only offers six per night and requires customers to preorder the dish by email or phone. (“I’m going to get a tattoo of a duck when this is all over,” he quipped.)
Former post office boxes behind a table in the dining room at The Old Post Office, a new restaurant by Bacchus Management Group inside a renovated old post office in Burlingame, Calif. on Sept. 29, 2026.Former post office service windows are lit up behind tables in the dining room at The Old Post Office, a new restaurant by Bacchus Management Group inside a renovated old post office in Burlingame, Calif. on Sept. 29, 2026.
Elements and details of the original post office still remain at the Old Post Office restaurant in Burlingame, Calif.
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Of course, my husband and I had to try the duck. The entree — an $80 supplement that serves two — is a four-act culinary experience.
As we spotted sous chef Kira LeMons approaching our table, pushing a cart, we knew the show was about to begin.
The gleaming duck was presented in a copper pan, atop a pile of herbs. LeMons turned on the burner and cracked long pepper into a saucepan, to which she added duck gizzards, plum brandy — flames! — duck jus and house-made blackberry vinegar.
As LeMons carved the duck, the legs were whisked back to the kitchen. The breasts — delicious with their crackly skin, juicy meat and umami flavor — were plated alongside Treviso and the just-composed sauce.
Parts two and three of the entree involved duck liver mousse and duck bone broth, respectively. “We try and use everything from the duck,” LeMons said. For the finale, the legs returned — cut into small pieces, cradled in lettuce with fixings such as pluot jam and pickled mustard seeds, and intended to be eaten like a taco. The duck is over the top, to be sure, but the dishes work and are a lot of fun.
An oven designed to cook ducks inside the kitchen at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
An oven designed to cook ducks inside the kitchen at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
Chef Jonathan Granada prepares the duck tableside in the dining room at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
Chef Jonathan Granada prepares the duck tableside in the dining room at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
Chef Jonathan Granada plates the duck tableside in the dining room at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
Chef Jonathan Granada plates the duck tableside in the dining room at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
Those familiar with Bacchus are probably wondering about a burger. In addition to its burger-centric Louie’s Original in San Francisco, various restaurants in the company portfolio offer a distinct burger. Chef de cuisine Niño Maraon developed the Postmaster’s Burger that is on the bar menu and that comes with skinny duck-fat fries and Thousand Island sauce ($27); it’s available upon request in the dining room, too.
Maraon’s creation consists of a 6-ounce patty made with beef from the Washington State-based Double R Ranch, which is also grilled over white oak. Also stacked between the brioche bun are smoked cheddar, guanciale, caramelized onions, crispy shallots and a fried Jidori egg. For the latter, the yolk is separated and cooked sous vide, while the white is fried; the two parts are reunited on the burger.
On the dessert menu — the purview of pastry chef Kyle Caporicci — the Tipsy Cake is one of Granada’s favorites. And I fully understand why. A pillowy brioche with a golden-brown crust, soaked in brandy and heavy cream, is topped with a quenelle of roasted vanilla bean gelato.
Our server, Gustavo Abarca, suggested that the Love Letter mignardise is a riff on a s’more: An envelope-shaped cinnamon sablé sandwich cookie, complete with a white chocolate flap, swaddles a passion fruit ganache and some marshmallow filling.
The pork belly en feuille de brick with rainbow Swiss chard, charred onion soubise and lemon-thyme jus at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
The pork belly en feuille de brick with rainbow Swiss chard, charred onion soubise and lemon-thyme jus at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
The duck leg with a blackberry mustard and flowering watercress is one of the speciality dishes at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., shown on Sept. 29, 2026.
The duck leg with a blackberry mustard and flowering watercress is one of the speciality dishes at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., shown on Sept. 29, 2026.
While the food and drinks should keep folks coming back again and again, there will undoubtedly be plenty who pop by out of curiosity about the space. During our dinner, a gentleman came in and walked the length of the dining room to point out his old P.O. Box to the staff.
The U.S. Postal Service sold the historic post office in September 2014 and ceased operations there four months later. In 2021, Dostart Development Company LLC and Sares Regis Group of Northern California broke ground at the site for 220 Park, whose 185,000-square-foot, six-story office and retail hub now neighbors the post office.
To excavate for parking, the post office was temporarily transplanted to the adjacent plaza that has since become the city’s town square. In an email to SFGATE, developer Steve Dostart wrote that “moving the 2.2 million pound post office (and returning it to it’s original position over the top of a newly constructed 2 story underground garage) were unique challenges not encountered before in my career.”
When it came time to enlist investors for the restaurant, Stannard focused on residents of the Burlingame and Hillsborough areas in the hopes that the Old Post Office would be a hangout for the community. “We made less than 10 phone calls,” he recalled, noting that 99% of the restaurant’s investors are from Burlingame and Hillsborough. “It picked up its own steam, and everybody that wanted to invest also knew 10 other people that wanted to be part of this project.”
Dry-aged duck with duck breast and some duck bone broth in a glass, a duck leg with a blackberry mustard and flowering watercress, and a duck liver mousse are among the speciality dishes at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., shown on Sept. 29, 2026.
Dry-aged duck with duck breast and some duck bone broth in a glass, a duck leg with a blackberry mustard and flowering watercress, and a duck liver mousse are among the speciality dishes at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., shown on Sept. 29, 2026.
The Postmaster’s Bar at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
The Postmaster’s Bar at the Old Post Office in Burlingame, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2026.
Stannard gets a handful of emails every day pitching him restaurant locations; most are not serious contenders. The Old Post Office, he noted, checked the boxes for Bacchus: “Is it a project we all want to do? Do we have an internal team ready to step up and do it? And does it make financial sense? It’s hard to get through all three hurdles.”
As for the upscale dining concept for the venture, “the building kind of tells you what it wants to be,” Stannard said. “It does not want to be a burger joint, right? As much as I love burger joints. The soaring ceilings, 100-year-old brass, aged marble — it says it wants to be a luxury, beautiful, dramatic restaurant.”
The Old Post Office, 222 Park Road, Burlingame. Open Monday through Sunday for dinner, 5-10 p.m. Starting Oct. 12, open for lunch Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Starting Oct. 17, open for brunch Saturday through Sunday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.