BREAKING NEWS: Adega became the first restaurant ever in San Jose to get a Michelin Star!!!

This is epic news for San Jose foodies! My favorite San Jose restaurant just got the international recognition it deserves. Adega in Little Portugal has become the first and only restaurant in San Jose to win a Michelin Star!

The Michelin guide represents the highest level of recognition restaurants can achieve. Each year, I highlight the lack of Michelin restaurants in San Jose with an annual post analyzing the guide and listing all Bay Area winners. I am completely thrilled that on my 8th annual post we will finally have a restaurant representing San Jose and it could not be a more appropriate one at that.

For my full review on Adega and its stunning interpretation of authentic Portuguese cuisine, head over here.

Better yet, head to the Adega website to make a reservation before the word gets out and it gets booked out for months.

Well done Adega, well done.

Okta is creating a second headquarters in Downtown San Jose

Okta is a hot "unicorn" tech company that provides identity management and security services for other businesses. In an unconventional move, they have decided to create a dual headquarters in the Bay Area.

They currently have 850 employees and around 500 of them work in the San Francisco office. That location limits their potential reach for talent, especially as commutes continue to get longer and longer with no public transit or highway improvements in site that will make a significant dent arriving anytime soon. Okta estimates that adding a HQ in San Jose will open up a third more talent that they would not have access to otherwise.

Okta will start with leasing the 16th floor at 300 Park Avenue near Adobe and right under Xactly. The 19,735 SQFT will provide enough room for at least 100 employees, but they have the option to expand to other floors in the building as well. They have already started hiring people for the office and plan to move in February.

The San Jose location will truly be a second headquarter. Executives will have desks in both locations and split their time between the two offices.

Why San Jose? They evaluated a lot of potential locations, but San Jose had the right mix of pro-growth mentality, expansion opportunity, urban amenities, and transportation options.

Source: SVBJ (Subscription Required)

Best Cities to Trick-or-Treat 2016

As a huge fan of Halloween, I'm thrilled to see San Jose maintain its Zillow rank as the 2nd best city to Trick-or-Treat in. Each year, Zillow creates the list using population density, walk score, home values, local crime data, and age distributions. This should theoretically provide the cities where trick-or-treaters can get the most candy, in the least amount of time, with the fewest safety risks.

Philadelphia took the top spot away from San Francisco this year, which now ranks #3 right behind San Jose. This means we now have the highest ranking west of the Mississippi for the study.

Within San Jose, the top specific neighborhoods for trick-or-treating were West San Jose (new this year), Cambrian Park, Willow Glen, Almaden Valley, and the Rose Garden.

Source: Zillow

Playful People Productions Presents: Annie KIDS

Annie KIDS

Based on the popular comic strip “Little Orphan Annie" and adapted from the Tony Award-winning Best Musical, Annie KIDS features everyone’s favorite little redhead in her very first adventure.

With equal measures of pluck and positivity,  Annie charms everyone's hearts despite a next-to-nothing start in 1930s New York City. Annie is determined to find the parents who abandoned her years ago on the doorstep of an orphanage run by the cruel Miss Hannigan. Annie eventually foils Miss Hannigan's evil machinations, finding a new home and family in billionaire, Oliver Warbucks, his personal secretary, Grace Farrell, and a lovable mutt named Sandy.

Our shows often sell out prior to the show weekend. Be sure to buy your tickets early, you won’t want to miss out on this fantastic production.

All Shows at the Historic Hoover Theater, 1635 Park Ave  San Jose, CA 95126

Show Times:
Friday, November 4th - 7:00pm
Saturday, November 5th - 11:00am, 3:00pm and 7:00pm
Sunday, November 6th - 11:00am, 3:00pm

Tickets available at www.playfulpeople.net
$12 attendees 12 and up, $8 children 11 and under, and $6 Children’s floor seating

Tickets at the door (30 minutes prior to curtain)
$15 attendees 12 and up, $10 children 11 and under, and $6 Children’s floor seating



Annie JR

Leapin’ Lizards! One of the world’s best-loved musicals returns to the Playful People stage.

Little Orphan Annie takes center stage in ANNIE JR. With pluck and positivity america’s favorite little orphan, Annie, charms everyone she meets despite a next-to-nothing start in the Depression-era New York City of the 1930s. She is determined to find her parents, who abandoned her years ago on the doorstep of an orphanage run by the cruel, embittered Miss Hannigan. When billionaire Oliver Warbucks decides to invite an orphan to his mansion for Christmas, Annie gets her chance to experience NYC  outside the confines of the orphanage. Despite Miss Hannigan's evil machinations, Annie befriends President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and finds a new home alongside Warbucks, his personal secretary Grace Farrell, and a lovable mutt named Sandy.

ANNIE JR is an adaptation of one of the world's best-loved and most-performed musicals. The show includes such unforgettable songs as It’s the Hard Knock Life, Easy Street, and the eternal anthem of optimism, Tomorrow.

Our shows often sell out prior to the show weekend. Be sure to buy your tickets early, you won’t want to miss out on this fantastic production.

All Shows at the Historic Hoover Theater, 1635 Park Ave  San Jose, CA 95126

Show Times:
Thursday, November 10th - 7:00pm
Friday, November 11th - 1:00pm and 7:00pm
Saturday, November 12th - 11:00am, 3:00pm and 7:00pm

Tickets available at www.playfulpeople.net
$12 attendees 12 and up, $8 children 11 and under, and $6 Children’s floor seating

Tickets at the door (30 minutes prior to curtain)
$15 attendees 12 and up, $10 children 11 and under, and $6 Children’s floor seating



For questions: barb@galiotto.com

Founded in 2010, Playful People Production’s mission is to provide a quality, caring environment where children, teens and their families can have positive theater experiences. We strive to involve all family members in the many aspects of on stage and backstage theater in a safe and fun environment and offer participation in theatrical productions, classes, summer stock and camps for ages 3-103

Saturday Stats: San Jose rents are stabilizing

This will be good news for a lot of folks. San Jose is one of the largest cities where rent growth has slowed down. The rate of increase has only been 0.6% in the last year (Sep 2015 - Sep 2016). Given that we have some of the highest rents in the US, hitting the brakes may not be a bad thing. The major downside is that this will likely delay some major development projects in San Jose.

Source: RENTCafe Blog

Cellista's "Finding San Jose"

San Jose cellist and artistic director, Cellista, is leveraging her full-length album entitled "Finding San Jose" to direct a multidisciplinary theater performance featuring the Ransom Dance Company and Haus Serpens Cabaret. Typically I wouldn't promote an event that takes place in SF, but this is a special exception. The album pays homage to Cellista's time in San Jose and tells a story of San Jose's importance in the history of the Bay Area.

The event takes place at Little Boxes Theater in San Francisco on October 29th at 7:30pm. Tickets are $10-15 and you can listen to the album at cellista.bandcamp.com for a preview. Have a look at the press release below for more details.

Cellista to Present: Finding San José  | Theatrical Album Release

A small immersive theater event incorporating Cellista’s debut album as the soundtrack for a multimedia event choreographed by Lilith Ransom and Mojo Deville.

San Francisco, CA: Cellista extends San José’s branches into San Francisco. This October, San Jose cellist, artistic director and performer Cellista (Freya Seeburger) presents Finding San José, a one-of-a-kind multimedia performance that incorporates original choreography created and performed by Lilith Ransom (Ransom Dance) and Mojo Deville (Haus Serpens Cabaret). The presentation interweaves film by Brian Favorite (Heklina), Jennifer Gigantino, Arash Maleki, and Cellista into a small immersive setting for a presentation of dance, theater, and poetry.

Composed in narrative format, Finding San José was engineered and mixed by Maryam Qudus (Doe Eye) and Cellista. The album is reminiscent of the French avant garde, functioning as a stepping stone for many of her collaborators (Rykarda Parasol, Emcee Infinite, rapper Demone Carter, and members of the Juxtapositions Chamber Ensemble) into new disciplines.

The album is a pastiche of genres including classical, hip hop, spoken word and field recordings, showcasing Cellista’s strength as a curator and artistic director. It serves as a soundtrack for film and commercial use, functioning as Cellista’s crossover into production.

Finding San José parallels the diversity of the Bay Area at large and reinforces Cellista’s dedication to creating and producing art that reflects the community she is based in.

This presentation at Little Boxes Theater (1661 Tennessee Street, San Francisco) builds on Cellista’s work in storytelling and interweaves San Jose’s narrative into a piece, showing the immediacy of San Jose’s narrative as important to the Bay Area’s story of growth, gentrification, and more.

Finding San Jose Theatrical album release debuts on Saturday, October 29th, 2016 at 7:30PM at Little Boxes Theater in San Francisco.

Tickets $10-15 Available at the door or online via Cellista.net
21+
 
Little Boxes Theater
1661 Tennessee St
San Francisco California 94107

Listen to the album: cellista.bandcamp.com
Find out more about Cellista Cellista.net

“Freya (Cellista) is a classically trained, punk rock spirited girl with the charm and elegance to defy the stereotype that classical music isn’t cool.”
— Belle Foundation

SJSU Engineering program gets high honors

The U.S. New & World Report's 2017 college rankings listed SJSU's engineering program as the third-best public school program in the country. If you factor in all schools, SJSU's engineering program ties for 23rd place. After factoring in the tuition compared to private schools, the ROI is tough to beat. It seems like SJSU continues to build more and more prestige over time.

Last school year over 2,000 students graduated from SJSU's College of Engineering, which is 29% higher than the previous year.

Source: SVBJ

October 2016 Downtown Dimension Highlights

Here are my notes from the latest edition of Downtown Dimension:

• SJdowntown.com has been relaunched with a more personal touch [Josh: the new site looks great!]
• For the first time, food traffic can reliably be counted along Downtown's eight busiest walking corridors. San Pedro Street, Santa Clara west of First, and First between Santa Clara and San Fernando have the highest consistent pedestrian volumes Downtown while SoFA has the lowest of the corridors monitored.
• SJDA Recommendations on local measures:
• Measure A ($950M affordable housing bonds) - YES
• Measure B - street repair and transit improvements - YES
• Measure E - small businesses must offer extra hours to part time workers - NO
• Measure F - pension modification for public employees - YES
• Measure G - business tax modernization - YES
• The public is invited to the 30th SJDA annual meeting on Oct 14th at First United Methodist Church (24 N. Fifth) from 8am-9:30am.
• Google purchased Apigee for $625 million.
• NextSpace expands to a 7,000 SQFT pace 97 S. Second St.
• Coast Poke Counter is now open at the San Pedro Square Public Market.
• Five Points is a new craft cocktail bar at 169 W.Santa Clara Street with drinks inspired by the saloons that graced the Five Points neighborhood in New York City.
• WESTCA, a boutique gym, is moving into the Sperry Station building at 30 N. Third St.
• Steve Borkenhagan will be the first recipient of the Business Support for the Arts Award issued by the San Jose Arts Commission.

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