Buck's of Woodside is a restaurant in

Woodside, California Woodside is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. Woodside is among the wealthiest communities in the United States, home to many technology billionaires and investment manager ...

, that has gained fame as a meeting place for venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs. Like nearby

Sand Hill Road Sand Hill Road, often shortened to just "Sand Hill" or "SHR", is an arterial road in western Silicon Valley, California, running through Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Woodside, notable for its concentration of venture capital companies. The road h ...

, Buck's has become a fixture of

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...

About

Jamis MacNiven left his career in construction to open the restaurant in 1991. Unhappy with local restaurants, MacNiven decided to create his own. By 1995, when the

dot-com boom The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compos ...

began, word of mouth spread that Buck's was a hotspot for Silicon Valley's most powerful. The restaurant is close to both

—home to the majority of Silicon Valley's venture capitalists—and Stanford University. Netscape,

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and

Tesla Motors Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles (electric cars and trucks), battery energy storage from home to grid- ...

are among the companies whose entrepreneurs held early meetings at Buck's. "Breakfast at Buck's" is the title of the introduction of the book, ''The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs'', by venture capitalist Bill Draper. In 2003, ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' magazine named Buck's one of its top business restaurants. The interior of Buck's features colorful decor, including cowboy boots, a talking buffalo head, a model of the Statue of Liberty wearing a sombrero, and a stuffed alligator. According to MacNiven, Steve Jobs is one of the few Silicon Valley icons who never set foot in his restaurant; MacNiven and the Apple co-founder had a falling out in the 1980s after Jobs hired him to remodel his house. Buck's nevertheless has a rare photo of Jobs, wearing a set of

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, on display. When the COVID19 pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, and the resulting restaurant shut-down, Jamis MacNiven decided to retire. In August 2020 Buck's was re-opened by his sons (Tyler MacNiven) who now run it.

References

External links

*{{Official website, buckswoodside.com Woodside, California Culture of Silicon Valley 1991 establishments in California Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area Tourist attractions in Silicon Valley

About

Further reading

References

External links