Vacations Blog

After Marsha’s post from Tuesday, I got to thinking about our celebrities up north, here in the Bay Area. Pat kindly provided me a list of Hollywood-ish celebrities in San Francisco, including Robin Williams, Clint Eastwood, Linda Ronstadt, George Lucas, Stephan Jenkins (lead singer of the homegrown rock group Third Eye Blind), all the members of Green Day, Chris Isaak, Carlos Santana, Huey Lewis and the News, and Nicolas Cage (for a while anyway). But (IMHO, the geeky side of me) the real celebrities are in Silicon Valley, home of Google, the iPhone, and Sand Hill Road venture capitalists. And if I were planning a visit to the Bay Area and wanted to get in some celebrity watching, I would definitely start on the Peninsula….

If you can get in (personal invitation necessary) a great place to spot SV celebrities is the Google Cafeteria. In addition to possible sightings of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, you might also happen upon any one of the 8 presidential candidates that have been invited to speak over the last 12 months. The chefs even have their own byline on the Official Google Blog!

Everyone knows all the big deals in the Valley are sealed over a plate of blueberry pancakes at Bucks Restaurant in Woodside. Fortunately, you don’t have to be on the A list to visit here, although you could spice up your visit by wearing your best business suit and bringing your laptop. Talk to your companion in whispers and write random things on paper napkins and you will be golden. Who knows, some of the ju-ju might even rub off on you and you could become the next Mark Zuckerberg!

Speaking of Mark, Facebook is just around the corner from our offices in Palo Alto. I am not sure exactly where Mark goes to eat and hang out, although as a twenty-something, I am sure his tastes go more towards Pizza My Heart and Andale Taqueria, than say Lavanda and Evvia Estiatoria. I am also pretty sure lots of Facebookers get their morning coffee from Coupa Cafe, the new place on Ramona in downtown Palo Alto. Their spicy hot chocolate is definitely worth a visit.

Other celebrities visit Palo Alto, too – I Fought The Law actually saw Suzanne Mikawa from Bill Nye, The Science Guy back in January. Too bad the Gawker Stalker does not have a Bay Area version, so these kind of important celebrity sightings could be uploaded in real time!

Is all this tech-talk boring you? Well then head straight back up to San Francisco for some “real” celebrity sightings. Rumor has it that you can spot folks like Robin Williams and Francis Ford Coppola at Rubicon, visiting celebs like Paris Hilton and Leonardo DiCaprio at the swinging Redwood Room, and Benjamin Bratt and his family at bakery Tartine on Guerrero.

Where do the celebrities hang out in your area? Do you have any dishy hideouts to share?

Photo of Johann August Sutter, 1803-1880, who established the area known as Sutter’s Fort which was renamed Sacramento, and later became the capital of California.