In January 2022, Tim Stannard climbed up a ladder and crawled through plywood into a plastic-wrapped government building that hadn’t been occupied in nearly a decade. He immediately knew that he wanted to turn the cavernous space into a restaurant.
Stannard leads Bacchus Management Group, whose portfolio includes 10 Bay Area restaurants, including the Michelin-starred Village Pub in Woodside, Selby’s in Redwood City and Spruce in San Francisco. At the time, he was in the throes of a complicated buildout for the group’s latest project, the swanky Augustine in San Jose. But he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to be part of the effort to restore the historic, Art Deco-style post office, built in Burlingame during the 1940s as part of the United States’ Works Progress Administration.
After five years of careful construction and preservation — which included complying with U.S. Secretary of Interior rehabilitation standards and, in order to build an underground parking lot, temporarily relocating the entire 1,000-ton landmark by rolling it across steel beams — the 220 Park Road building will open on Oct. 1 as the Old Post Office, an upscale restaurant and bar. Locals eagerly anticipating the post office’s restoration have been repeatedly peeking their heads in and getting impromptu tours from Stannard (some, he said, still bringing their mail)…