There’s great news on the horizon for downtown San Jose with the impending opening of The Pressroom, a new restaurant and lounge that should raise the bar on dining experiences in the San Pedro Square area.
The Pressroom and the adjacent Bar Mercury are expected to have a grand opening and ribbon cutting Thursday, though the staff was put through its paces with several private events held during GTC, Nvidia’s big tech conference, and over the weekend.
This is the latest concept on the block for Nuvo Hospitality Group, which includes O’Flaherty’s Irish Pub, Five Points Cocktail Lounge, Dr. Funk Rum House and Hella Good Burger. It’s definitely the most ambitious, and Dave Mulvehill, Nuvo’s chief of operations, said the aim was to create a destination dining experience for the western edge of downtown.
The gorgeously designed 6,000-square-foot restaurant and bar should easily accomplish that, offering a menu of California cuisine — look for the meticulous beef Wellington to quickly become a signature dish — and distinctive cocktails. Crossing the threshold into the Bar Mercury puts you in an entirely different atmosphere, with dark furnishings, polished brass and dimmer lighting.
The Pressroom name comes from its location, which long ago was one of the early homes of the Mercury News. Mulvehill is working with local artist Jorge “J Duh” Camacho on a mural for one of the exterior walls that will honor the location’s newspaper legacy, and of course, having the cocktail lounge called the Bar Mercury will warm the heart of an ink-stained wretch like me.
The drink list also has a few nods to the Fourth Estate, with martinis like The Wire, The Standard and The Rewrite and cocktails named the Final Edition, the City Beat, the Correspondent and the Byline Fizz or the non-alcoholic Evening Edition.
Now, both The Pressroom and the Bar Mercury might be a little too fancy to become a true newspaper dive, like Manny’s Cellar or Bini’s used to be back in the day. But when I’m yearning for an Inkwell Manhattan, that’s where I’ll head after deadline.
SCHOOL SPIRIT: Silvia Scandar Mahan, president of Cristo Rey San Jose Jesuit High School, laid out a pretty hefty goal for the school’s supporters at this year’s Rey of Hope fundraiser Thursday: Raise enough to provide scholarships for 160 of the school’s 428 students at $12,500 a piece. Cristo Rey students could easily do that math, but for the rest of us, I’ll tell you that’s $2 million.
The crowd of more than 400 people at the event rose to the challenge, helped by event sponsors and early donors who gave them a $1.6 million head start (and a $100,000 matching gift from Nick and Catherine Noviello).
The impressive guest list included founding chairs John A. Sobrato and B.J. Cassin, U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo, Bishop Oscar Cantú, philanthropist Diane Brandenburg, Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
CORNERSTONE CHAMPIONS: The YMCA’s Project Cornerstone honored Mary Hoshiko Haughey with a Lifetime Achievement Award at its annual Asset Champions breakfast Friday at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
Haughey has held more than 21 roles at the YMCA — from day camp leader to chief operating officer — over a career that started in 1979 when she applied for a job at the East Valley YMCA.
The YMCA also awarded a special award to Karen Haley, a longtime Project Cornerstone volunteer who died last year. Haley was one of the original parent facilitators for Project Cornerstone, an initiative to help young people grow up feeling respected and valued at their schools and in the community. Her work over more than two decades helped make the breakfast into the success it became, Project Cornerstone Executive Director Ziem Nguyen Neubert said.
Mark T. Johnson, board chair for Project Cornerstone, also lauded Haley. “It’s very hard to imagine this breakfast without her warm smile and kind heart,” he said.
PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES: The Los Altos History Museum is hosting a traveling exhibition, “She Sang Me a Good Luck Song: The California Indian Photographs of Dugan Aguilar,” which opened Thursday and runs through June 8.
Aguilar, who grew up in Northern California and died in 2018 at age 71, documented the everyday lives of Native Americans throughout the state and provided a counterpoint to conventional portrayals.
“This exhibition is vital because it presents contemporary California Indigenous peoples, countering the common tendency of history books and exhibits to focus only on Native American history before or around European contact,” Curator and Director of Exhibitions Amy Ellison said.
On April 5, the museum will host a family photography workshop with photographer S.M. Lieu from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. It costs $30 per family ($15 for museum members). Get more information at www.losaltoshistory.org.