Renowned chef eyes San Mateo for beer hall: Locals look to break mold of casual dining with Wursthall

Stirring a large pot of boiling potatoes and plating them with a spicy curry sauce and crispy sausage, López-Alt, 37, tested out variations of the flavorful and satisfying dishes typically found at beer halls amidst stacks of pans holding intricately woven pretzels baked at the San Mateo bakery Backhaus.

Known for shedding light on how recipes are developed, the famed food author and San Mateo resident said he is looking forward to developing simple but interesting recipes at his next restaurant.

“It’s not going to be fancy, it’s just going to be good,” he said, of the fare he will soon be preparing at the former location of Capellini Italian restaurant at 310 Baldwin Ave.

With partners Adam Simpson and Tyson Mao, owners of Grape & Grain bar and retail store in downtown San Mateo, López-Alt hopes to create the kind of family-friendly, large party-friendly establishment he feels is lacking in San Mateo.

“There isn’t a ton of casual, good mid-price-range types of places,” he said, adding that putting down roots in San Mateo in the three years since he and his wife moved from New York has motivated him to invest in the community’s improvement.

And it seems as though López-Alt has found kindred spirits in Simpson and Mao, who have already invested in San Mateo’s downtown scene in the last six years since they opened Grape & Grain, located a few blocks away from their new venture.

“I think we’re at this kind of crossroads of defining what downtown San Mateo is,” said Simpson.

Though Simpson, 30, has observed a number of vibrant ethnic and high-end restaurants succeed in San Mateo, he said he has yet to see the kind of dining spot younger parents can take their families to and stay for as long as they want.

He and Mao opened Grape & Grain with the intention of filling a hole in San Mateo’s bar culture and create a place where beer nerds and enthusiasts alike could enjoy a relaxed ambiance, and he said they are hoping to similarly fill a hole in the city’s restaurant scene.

With an emphasis on walk-ins, the trio is hoping to create communal dining areas where friends can grab a drink and easily add quality food to their order, or figure out whether they want to do both as the night unfolds.

“We want to deliver a place that’s somewhere that somebody can come once a week as opposed to a special occasion place,” said Simpson.

Ann Fienman, executive director of the Downtown San Mateo Association, said she is excited to see the pivotal downtown corner spot activated again and looks forward to seeing how the locals shape the city’s downtown.

“For them to be partnering up to bring something new and unique to downtown, there’s a lot of excitement about it,” she said of the reactions she has received from other downtown business owners.

Simpson will be designing the restaurant’s drinks list, and said he plans on stocking the restaurant with equal parts local, German, Belgian and rotating taps as well as three red and three white wines on a given day. Though he and Mao will have a much bigger space to contend with when compared to the 1,500 square feet Grape & Grain occupies, they are excited to create a bright, casual dining room with blue colors and wood accents on the ground floor, and a bar reminiscent of a speakeasy in the basement of the building.

At just under 10,000 square feet, the space will offer Mao and Simpson a new opportunity to test their hypotheses about what business models work in today’s restaurant landscape. With minimum wage laws and creeping rents pushing restaurant owners using traditional models out of the food and beverage industry, the San Mateo natives say they are eager to figure out what kind of restaurant experience today’s diners enjoy most.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said Mao. “With Grape & Grain, we were all new to this idea of opening a business in the food and beverage industry.”

But after years of learning how business models can be applied to a bar and lounge, Mao, 33, is excited to take the next step — learning what makes the combination of food and beverages exciting to diners.

And for the three 30-somethings, it seems that tracking closely to their own preferences will be their best guide. With both López-Alt and Mao as fathers of children less than 2 years old, they’re hoping to create the kind of restaurant where they can easily take their families.

“I want a place that I want to go to,” said López-Alt.

anna@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200 ext. 102