"What's more important to me is that the community feels like this is a place for them," Tim Stannard told The Almanac the week before The Old Post Office opened. In the same interview, the Bacchus Management Group founder said he also has "Michelin on the brain."

Both goals show up in how the restaurant at 222 Park Road is built. Dinner opened on Thursday, October 1. There is a $120 six-course dinner and a tableside duck limited to six orders a night. There is also a bar where nothing needs to be booked and the menu starts at $9. For a restaurant that wants to be the neighborhood's, the bar matters more than the duck. October is also the month when the bar, the staggered lunch and brunch launches, and the Park Road market all land on the same street.

A building that was boarded up in 2022

Stannard says he looked for a Burlingame space for about 20 years without finding one that fit. In 2022 a friend talked him into looking at a boarded-up, abandoned building, and he told The Almanac he knew within two minutes that he wanted it. At the time, Bacchus was in the middle of building Augustine at Santana Row. Stannard toured the space with Stephen Brady, the designer he has worked with for years, and both were struck by the high ceilings, the preserved terrazzo floor and the brass work of the 1941 Art Deco post office.

A lot of the old building is still in use. Stannard collected marble from the rubble that had been quarried in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He also found an abandoned eagle, now mounted on the host stand, and the door of the original safe, now placed near the restrooms. The same eagle is pressed into the butter served with the bread course. In Eater's account, chef Jonathan Granada wanted a menu that could hold its own in a room like this. Granada worked at the French Laundry and at Otium in Los Angeles under Timothy Hollingsworth.

The building's scale explains the four price points. A room this large and this formal could easily have become a special-occasion restaurant only. Bacchus split it into several services at different prices.

Four services, one address

Here is how the formats break down, based on Eater's October 2 report, The Almanac's September 30 preview and the restaurant's reservations page:

Stannard calls this pricing "accessible luxury." He told Eater that a room with this much grandeur could easily start at $300 or $400 a person, and that pricing like that "runs absolutely counter" to what he wants for the restaurant. Against that benchmark, $120 is less than half. Lunch at $55 is less than half of dinner. The bar's lowest price is a fraction of either.

The duck is the dish that will draw the most attention. The ducks are dry-aged for 10 days and cooked in a custom carousel oven that turns them horizontally. They are carved at the table from carts built by the same maker as the carts at Eleven Madison Park. Over about 20 minutes the duck comes out in four courses: breast with grilled treviso, liver with brioche, grilled legs with three vinegars, and a broth steeped with matsutakes. Only six are served a night, and each one has to be bought along with the reservation. Treat it as something to plan well ahead, not something to decide at the table.

The bar is the part anyone can walk into

The restaurant's reservations page says the Postmaster's Bar and lounge are open during regular restaurant hours for cocktails, wine and food, with seating on a first-come, first-served basis. For people who live nearby, this is the line that matters most. The other services require a booking made in advance. The bar only requires showing up.

The bar menu is meant to be simpler than the dining room's. The Almanac lists duck confit, roast chicken, salads and a burger, priced from $9 to $45. Eater adds lobster rolls, steak frites and a classic cocktail list. Like every Bacchus restaurant, this one has its own burger. Granada's is a six-ounce patty with house Thousand Island, smoked cheddar, caramelized onions and crispy shallots. It is topped with an egg whose white is fried with guanciale and whose yolk is confited so it stays runny.

Stannard told The Almanac he hopes having both a casual à la carte option and the prix fixe will let the restaurant cover "all types of experiences the community would want to have." The bar is how that plays out in practice. People can eat at The Old Post Office without planning a dinner.

Neither the restaurant's site nor the press coverage gives separate hours for the bar. The bar follows the restaurant's hours. Dinner runs from 5 to 10 p.m. every night, and weekday lunch starts October 12 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Brunch hours differ between sources. Eater lists 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on weekends, and The Almanac lists 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Call 650.502.1000 before planning a brunch around either.

October is the month everything overlaps on Park Road

The walk-in bar matters more this month because of what else is on Park Road. According to the Burlingame Chamber of Commerce, the Fresh Thursday Market runs from 3 to 7 p.m. on Thursdays from May through October. The restaurant's dinner hours start at 5 p.m., so on Thursdays this month the market's last two hours overlap with the restaurant's first two. If the market keeps to its posted schedule, that overlap lasts for the remaining Thursdays in October and then ends for the season.

The rest of downtown's October calendar is close by:

• Saturday, October 10, 5 to 6:30 p.m. Taddy's Tunes hosts free Rock, Soul and R&B music trivia at Burlingame Town Square. Food comes from Sapore Italiano at 1447 Burlingame Ave., Gigi's Cafe at 1080 Howard Ave. and Copenhagen Bakery & Café at 1216 Burlingame Ave., and prizes come from the San Francisco Giants.
• Monday, October 12. Weekday lunch starts at The Old Post Office. Granada describes the lunch dishes as "very similar" to dinner, with changes such as soup in place of vegetables.
• Saturday, October 17. Weekend brunch starts. The opening menu includes a buckwheat crepe filled with lemon ricotta, topped with honey-poached cranberries and almonds, and bruléed with a torch.
• Wednesday, October 21, 6 to 8 p.m. The Citizens Environmental Council holds a free screening of The Invisible Mammal at Burlingame Community Center, 850 Burlingame Ave. Preregistration is required.
• Sunday, October 25, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fall Fest takes over Downtown Burlingame with a petting zoo, a train, arts and crafts, specialty food, music and a costume contest. The listing does not name a specific block.

The first weekend of the month already brought downtown out. Burlingame LIVE ran at Town Square from October 1 to 4 with 12 bands, and that was the same week The Old Post Office opened. The events still ahead are all within walking distance of Park Road.

After October, Sunday becomes the overlap day

When the Thursday market ends, the overlap moves to Sundays. The Chamber's Sunday market runs from the third week of January through the Sunday before Christmas, which is December 20 this year. It sets up on Park Road starting at Burlingame Avenue, and the Chamber's event listing gives the address as 200 Park Road, between Burlingame and Howard avenues. With brunch starting October 17, every Sunday market from then through December 20 shares the street with a weekend service at The Old Post Office.

The building also has more to come. Bacchus plans to start Phase II this winter: an outdoor patio area and a 60-seat glass house, scheduled to open in April. The Almanac describes the glass house as a fully enclosed, air-conditioned, 1,200-square-foot greenhouse with glass walls and a steel roof. A 24-seat private dining room is already attached to the main dining room.

The surrounding blocks are changing too. Downtown Burlingame's website lists Amado and Sleep 360 as new openings, and it lists Trad Bone Broth and Almondette as on the way, without dates. For now, The Old Post Office's walk-in bar is the newest open option on Park Road, and through the end of October its dinner hours overlap with the Thursday market's last two hours.

When a building like the old post office reopens, it changes how people use the blocks around it, and that can affect how nearby homes are valued. Griffith Partners follows these changes on Park Road and across downtown Burlingame. If you are wondering what the latest openings mean for your home, we are happy to prepare a private, no-cost valuation.