Costantini Team | Bay Area, CA Real Estate Experts

As the San Mateo Daily Journal reported, Eric Hassett told a customer standing outside his gutted hardware store in January, "I'm still saying May," adding, "It may be closer to May 1 or it may be closer to May 31, but I'm sticking to it."

He was talking about Hassett Ace Hardware, the Woodside Plaza store his family has run since 2014, four months after a driver mistook the gas pedal for the brake and drove straight through the front window. Just down Woodside Road, two other neighborhood fixtures were making their own quiet promises about when they'd be back. The three businesses reopened on different timelines.

Bravo Taqueria's Reopening Timeline

According to National Today, Bravo Taqueria opened at 980 Woodside Road in 1991, when Javier and Guadalupe Mendez started serving family recipes out of a hole-in-the-wall storefront. As The Almanac reported, Carlos Rios took over in 2006 at 27, with no restaurant experience. By 2023, when ADA compliance issues forced the taqueria to close, Rios had built a loyal following.

The closure was supposed to last a couple of months, just long enough for a short remodel. It took three years. Bravo Taqueria finally reopened on February 13, 2026, to a line of regulars. The building is now fully ADA compliant, and the menu is unchanged: chile relleno, tamales at $11.95 for two, and the Bravito on a green tortilla.

Bravo Taqueria reopened nearly three years after its 2023 closure; the other two businesses reopened on shorter timelines.

Hassett Ace Hardware Reopened in May

On December 15, 2025, at 5:10 p.m., a car drove through the front window of Hassett Ace Hardware in Woodside Plaza and caught fire. No one was injured, but the store, which the Hassett family has operated since opening on Halloween 2014 as part of a Peninsula chain dating back to 1957, was gutted. A month later, the exterior was still boarded up, a "temporarily closed" banner hung next to the sign, and Eric Hassett stood in the empty building and made the promise that opened this piece.

He kept it, almost to the day.

"This rebuild gave us the opportunity not just to repair the store, but to make meaningful improvements. We're excited to welcome everyone back."

— Eric Hassett, as quoted by The Almanac

The store soft-opened at 8 a.m. on May 13, 2026, with manager Sarah Carr, who joined the Hassett family business in 2010 and helped open the Redwood City location in 2014, running the popcorn machine again for the first time in five months. The rebuild wasn't cosmetic. The entrance was shifted a few feet, cashier stations were moved behind a concrete wall instead of window glass, and concrete bollards now sit between the parking lot and the storefront. A grand opening celebration followed on July 12, 2026.

The timelines differed: Bravo Taqueria reopened nearly three years after closing, while Hassett Ace Hardware soft-opened in May 2026 after its December 2025 crash.

Business	What They Promised	What Actually Happened
Bravo Taqueria	A couple of months (2023)	Reopened Feb. 13, 2026, nearly 3 years later
Hassett Ace Hardware	"Sticking to May" (Jan. 2026)	Soft opened May 13, grand opening July 12
Bay Burgers	"Early 2026" per storefront banner	Opened in March 2026, about six weeks later

The Newcomer's Opening Timeline

The third storefront in this stretch never had an old version of itself to compare against. Bay Burgers started as a two-day-a-week pop-up, grilling smashburgers on a Blackstone griddle at Hoover Park before Xavier Pereznegron, a Redwood City native with a fine-dining background and training in France, moved the operation to a tent in a Spring Street parking lot in the summer of 2024. It built a near-perfect Yelp record there, and in September 2025 the Pereznegrons closed the pop-up to have their first child and shift focus to a permanent location.

That location turned out to be 976 Woodside Road, the old 5th Quarter Pizza building, remodeled and downsized, sitting directly across the parking lot from Bravo Taqueria. A banner promised an "early 2026" opening. It landed in March, roughly six weeks past the optimistic end of that window, which by the standards of this particular block counts as basically on time.

The menu explains why Pereznegron calls the fries a technique rather than a side dish: they're cooked twice, a method he picked up studying in France, and the burgers are built on Hawaiian bread buns with 100% short-rib patties, grilled onions, banana peppers, and homemade pickles. A quarter-pound burger runs $9.50, the half-pound is $11.50, and rotating weekly specials cover everything from smoked meats to loaded fries. As Palo Alto Online reported, Pereznegron said, "I'm opening a restaurant because I love food, not because I want to make money."

Bay Burgers now has real competition within a few minutes' walk. Woodside Roadhouse, just across Woodside Road, also does smash burgers alongside chicken tenders and French bread pizzas, and Redwood Grill inside Woodside Plaza itself has quietly served a well-regarded, non-smashed burger with a long list of toppings for years. Three burger options on one stretch of road is not something this neighborhood had a year ago.

What This Actually Means for Your Week

As of this August, all three storefronts have been open at the same time since Hassett's soft opening in May, the first stretch in years this corner of Woodside Road hasn't had at least one boarded window or a for-lease sign in it. The practical version of all this:

Bravo Taqueria, 980 Woodside Road, open Monday through Saturday, noon to 8 p.m., fully ADA compliant now.
Bay Burgers, 976 Woodside Road, next door to Bravo, serving smashburgers and rotating specials.
Hassett Ace Hardware, Woodside Plaza, back to full hours with a rebuilt entrance, protective bollards, and the popcorn machine running on weekends.

All three businesses are now open. For neighborhood regulars, the return of these storefronts marks a change along Woodside Road.

If you're weighing a move to this part of Redwood City, or you already call Woodside Plaza home and you're curious what your own property looks like in a market that's been busy in more ways than one this year, The Costantini Team knows this stretch of road block by block. Schedule a Consultation and we'll walk you through it.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.