We’ve gotten used to enduring either the direct threat or the indirect result (smoke, mainly) from California wildfires, and given that this summer is expected to be a hot one, it’s a good time to make sure your home is prepared. But wildfires are not the only way we can be threatened by fire, as two recent structure fires remind us.

Just last Tuesday, fire broke out in the kitchen at Mazra, the Mediterranean restaurant that opened at the beginning of April in the Broadway space that previously had been home to the Courthouse 2021 steak house. Although no one was hurt, and the fire seems to have been relatively small (it didn’t spread to any of the neighboring buildings, and was primarily confined to the kitchen), the damage that resulted from extinguishing the fire — which apparently got into the building’s walls — was significant. Thus, after just about 2-1/2 months of operation, Mazra has been forced to close for some period of time while the restaurant is rebuilt. I really feel for both the owners and the now-unemployed employees of Mazra, a business which seemed to have been doing really well here in Redwood City. Hopefully it can get back on its feet quickly (one early estimate I heard was that it may be something like four to six weeks).

Mazra’s recovery should be relatively simple, at least when compared with the recovery that will need to take place after the massive fire that destroyed half of the affordable housing project being built for Mercy Housing and the County behind the Fair Oaks Health Center, off Middlefield Road just over the border in North Fair Oaks. Although not located in Redwood City, Middlefield Junction (as it is being called) is slated to contain 179 affordable apartments, a childcare center, and community open space, and thus is part of the solution to assisting the homeless folks who are residing in and around Redwood City.

Work on Middlefield Junction got underway exactly one year ago today. Between then and June 3 of this year, when the fire broke out, the James E. Roberts-Obayashi Corporation — the construction company in charge of the project — was making great progress. Here is what one of the project’s two buildings looks like today:

Thankfully, that building, along with the nearby homes and the Fair Oaks Health Center, which stands between this project and Middlefield Road, seem to have escaped the fire pretty much unscathed. Kudos not only to the many fire personnel who worked this eight-alarm fire, but also to the various county sheriffs who both evacuated those people living and working nearby and who helped manage the scene.

The building pictured above will ultimately contain 75 apartments and the complex’s childcare center: because it was not damaged, work on it has already resumed. As for the other building, though…

[The above photo is courtesy of the County Sheriff’s Office]

That building was to be five stories, all built from wood, over a single-story concrete podium (the building that remains is four stories over a single-story concrete podium), and was to contain 104 affordable apartments of various sizes. As you can see, the wooden portion of that building, at least, was completely destroyed.  Hopefully the concrete podium itself survived the fire, but in order to find out the burned remnants of the building will first have to be cleared away:

Currently, all of that debris is being hauled away. Once the podium is clear, the state of the podium itself will presumably be assessed. Then, work will get underway to rebuild. Thus, while this likely represents a major setback for the project — at least a year, I’m guessing — it doesn’t mark the death of the project altogether.

Just behind those trees along the left edge of the above photograph, incidentally, are a number of single-family homes that line Pacific Avenue. Viewed from that street, it seems a miracle that those homes survived:

Again, great work on the part of our local fire departments. I have heard that some residents of those homes have reported ashes and bits of the burned building falling into their yards, and so there may be some minor damage, but if so the developer has expressed a keen willingness to help out.

In a really weird coincidence, on the same day that the fire broke out in North Fair Oaks, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office was slated to open its new “state-of-the-art” headquarters in downtown Redwood City, at 330 Bradford St. I don’t know if the grand opening went as planned, but regardless the building did indeed seem to be open for business when I went by this week:

This very modern-looking facility, which was constructed by drastically remodeling a wing of the Maguire Correctional Facility, remains attached to that county jail (the older building with the small square windows to the right is the Maguire facility).

Hopefully, those reading this will not have a need to visit the new County Sheriff’s headquarters building. You may, however, find a reason to visit our local Social Security Administration office, as I did several years ago when I needed to obtain a replacement for a lost Social Security card. When I needed to visit, the local office was located on the second floor of a small office building at 601 Allerton St., just about a block away from the new Sheriff’s HQ. But after remodeling a somewhat unusual-looking building on Broadway that has been empty for a number of years, our local Social Security Office can now be found at 1718 Broadway:

You’ll find them next door to the 7-11, just about a block down Broadway from Maple Street.

Lastly, some restaurant updates. First off, Burma Spice, Redwood City’s newest (only?) Burmese restaurant, is very much open for business at 490 El Camino Real, in the space formerly occupied by Hikari Sushi & Grill.

My wife and I picked up dinner there last Monday (unlike many restaurants, they are open 7 days a week) and although I’m no expert on Burmese cuisine, we both thought the food was terrific. Any of the usual delivery services (they list DoorDash, UberEats, Grubhub, and Beyond Menu) will bring their food to your door, or you can do as we did and pick up an order placed online through their website (www.BurmaSpiceRWC.com). Or, you can eat on the premises, either in their lovely indoor dining room or on their outdoor patio. We plan to do just that next time (which will be soon).

Coming very soon, it seems, is a new German beer hall/beer garden, in the former Café La Tartine space, on Theatre Way:

Called Dasbierhauz, this is the second location for an outfit that has been operating, apparently with great success, on Castro Street in Mountain View since 2020. It will boast a fairly extensive beer menu, with 18 beers on tap plus a number of bottled German beers. They’ll also be serving radler (beer mixed with lemonade or grapefruit soda), plus sodas, juices, and sparkling water. And then there is their food menu, which is chock-full of popular German dishes, including schnitzels, wurst (and currywurst), sauerbraten, and more. Naturally the menu also lists sauerkraut, German potato salad, pretzels, and much, much more.

Those yellow benches in the foreground of the above image indicate that there will be plenty of communal seating, as is the style with many German beer halls. Dasbierhauz will be pet friendly and family friendly, with a separate menu just for kids.

Of course, Redwood City already has a beer hall/beer garden of sorts in the form of Gourmet Haus Staudt, which also serves as a wonderful little German market that has been selling a variety of products and an incredibly extensive range of imported German beers in Redwood City since 1975. It’ll be interesting to see how these two businesses coexist. Certainly, our area is large enough that it should be able to support two such businesses, so hopefully both will thrive. Ideally the loyal patrons of Gourmet Haus Staudt will continue to remain loyal, with Dasbierhauz introducing the joys of German food and beer to a whole new audience. One can hope…

Thanks to a tip from Amanda Anthony, Redwood City’s new Economic Development Manager, the rumor is true: on the corner of Broadway and Winslow Street, the long-empty storefront that for years was home to Brick Monkey is indeed becoming a bakery. And not just any bakery: Baires Bakery is slated to be an “Argentine-style bakery and deli.”

I can’t say I know anything about Argentinian food, but the images and descriptions on this new venture’s website certainly have me intrigued.

Finally, the restaurant going into the old Dragon Theatre space at 2120 Broadway that I’ve previously referred to as “Brundavan Indian Cuisine” (that being the name they used when filing for their liquor license) has its signs up:

As you can see, they are billing themselves as “Varam Premium Indian Cuisine.” I have yet to find a website, but we shouldn’t have long to wait: on previous walks I got a good look into the interior, and the dining area, at least, looked pretty much done. This week the outdoor patio was being constructed, and it, too, looked almost done. While I have no knowledge of the state of their kitchen, and nor do I know how they are doing as far as staffing goes, surely this one will be open very soon now.

I wish all of these new ventures great success, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they don’t have to go through what Mazra is going through. But summer is looking bright when it comes to Redwood City’s restaurant scene. I look forward to giving all of these new ventures all a try!