As downtown San Mateo restaurants shut down, several new ones plan to open early this year

“It’s still the same team, same concept and same service,” General Manager Xian Choy said. “When we lost our lease at Wursthall … we thought we were done completely. We didn’t think continuing [with Wunderbar] was a possibility.”

Choy said the bar took the hiatus as an opportunity to update its drinks menu, now offering a monthly cocktail, a monthly shot and boilermaker. It also expanded its zero-proof cocktail menu, which includes refreshing no-alcohol rum- and gin-based drinks.

“We didn’t have any truly zero-proof cocktails before. We did some by omitting spirits, but we didn’t have a built-from-scratch cocktail that was the flavor profile we wanted,” Choy said, adding that the reopening and new menu coincides well with Dry January, when many people take a break from drinking.

While some recently mourned the loss of Tomatina and Vespucci — which both closed at the end of December — another restaurant that serves dinner, Reposado, plans to open in the near future. The Mexican establishment already has a location in Palo Alto, with the second restaurant opening at 311 Baldwin Ave.

The neighborhood’s third new restaurant, Johnny’s, will open soon at 7 N. B St. in the Brickline building and is an extension of the Half Moon Bay-based breakfast and brunch establishment, which itself is only a few years old.

“We opened the first one in 2023, and it has been going so well since opening and continues to become more and more popular, and so we thought we should open another,” Betsy Del Fierro said, who owns the family-operated business with her husband.

Del Fierro, who also runs It’s Italia in Half Moon Bay, said the menu at the new location will mostly remain the same.

“The concept is going to be the same, and the menu will be pretty much the same,” she said.