Capers restaurant in Campbell celebrates twenty fifth anniversary

It was laborious to discover a seat at Capers Eat & Drink in Campbell on Thursday afternoon as an enormous crowd confirmed as much as have fun the restaurant and bar’s twenty fifth anniversary.

Proprietor Kam Ravazi was all smiles as he greeted prospects, together with Campbell Mayor Sergio Lopez and members of the town council who stopped by with a proclamation to mark the spectacular milestone.

“This is like my personal version of Cheers,” Ravazi mentioned, referring to the fictional Boston TV bar “where everybody knows your name.” “I must know 80 percent of the customers by name.”

Capers Eat & Drink proprietor Kam Razavi poses on the restaurant in Campbell, which celebrated its twenty fifth anniversary with a celebration for patrons on Thursday, July 17, 2025. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Space Information Group) 

Ravazi self-deprecatingly credit everybody however himself for the restaurant’s quarter-century of endurance. “We’ve been blessed with great employees, great customers and even great landlords,” he mentioned.

Between Capers and its sister restaurant the Loft in downtown San Jose — which has been round for 21 years — mentioned he’s nonetheless working seven days every week, simply not 14-hour days like he did at first. “You get up every morning and you love what you do,” he mentioned.

Campbell Metropolis Councilmember Terry Hines, who shared a desk Thursday with Councilmember Anne Bybee and Vice Mayor Dan Furtado, mentioned he loves the sports activities vibe created by Sharks and Warriors jerseys, 49ers helmets and images, and an enormous mural of a San Francisco Giants participant stealing house. “It’s a great showing to see a full house here today,” he mentioned.

Capers Eat & Drink in Campbell celebrated its twenty fifth anniversary with a celebration for patrons on Thursday, July 17, 2025. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Space Information Group) 

Ravazi says he’s grateful to have two locations which have survived each the COVID-19 pandemic, financial downturns and the work-from-home revolution that’s decimated lunch crowds all through the Bay Space. “I’ve had a lot of friends who have closed recently,” he mentioned. “It’s not a friendly environment for restaurants right now.”

A minimum of it’s nonetheless pleasant inside Capers.

PALO ALTO MUSEUM NAMES CEO: Because the Palo Alto Museum strikes nearer to opening, it’s added an enormous half to its future by hiring Marguerite Gong Hancock as its inaugural president and CEO.

Hancock, who most just lately was chief innovation officer and vp of programming on the Laptop Historical past Museum in Mountain View, ought to be an excellent match for the museum, which is on monitor to open subsequent 12 months. She’s a Palo Alto native who labored at Stanford for 20 years, raised her household — with husband Russ Hancock of Joint Enterprise Silicon Valley — within the metropolis and co-founded the Christmas Crèche exhibit, a practice in Palo Alto since 1987.

Marguerite Gong Hancock was introduced because the inaugural president and CEO of the Palo Alto Museum on July 16, 2025. (Photograph by Douglas Fairbairn) 

Hancock mentioned in a press release that she’s excited to deliver the Palo Alto Museum to life. “Palo Alto’s enduring spirit of big ideas, innovation, and impact shines through Stanford University, bold social movements, the ongoing digital revolution, and countless other stories,” she mentioned. “Rooted in Palo Alto and connected to the world, the museum will be both a welcoming community space for all and a powerful platform—to honor the past, challenge the present, and imagine a better future together.”

If you happen to’ve been following alongside, the Palo Alto Museum shall be housed within the Roth Constructing, a 20,000 square-foot Spanish Colonial Revival landmark construction that’s practically a century outdated. The previous website of the Palo Alto Medical Clinic, the constructing has undergone a $14 million renovation. Thoits Bros., a property administration firm with deep Palo Alto roots, offered a $1 million reward to fund Hancock’s rent.

TRANSFORMATIONAL GIFT: Silicon Valley businesswoman and philanthropist Louise de Putron has donated $1 million to Pivotal, the San Jose-based nonprofit that works to make sure to way forward for younger folks in and just lately aged-out of the foster care system. The  reward will assist Pivotal’s teaching and scholarship packages over the subsequent three years and likewise set up a brand new fund to assist the psychological and emotional well-being of foster care youth in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

Pivotal CEO Matt Bell mentioned the nonprofit is honored to be amongst de Putron’s beneficiaries and considers it a “vote of confidence” of their work.  “Her donation will have a tremendous impact on the scholars we serve,” he mentioned.

FAREWELL TO A SPECIAL SCHOOL: Former college students, employees and relations gathered at Chandler Tripp College in San Jose in late June for a farewell/reunion to the college, which had served particular wants youngsters since 1949. The college’s lease on Santa Clara County property on Thornton Approach close to Santa Clara Valley Medical Heart just lately expired, and its packages are being relocated to different Santa Clara County Workplace of Training websites, drawing an in depth a legacy that lasted greater than 75 years.

Kathy Bays — a retired particular schooling supervisor on the Workplace of Training — organized the occasion, which included plenty of alumni and former academics together with Sylvia Chinn and Joe Fimiani, whose first instructing job within the Nineteen Seventies was at Chandler Tripp. Former Santa Clara County Superintendent of Faculties Colleen Wilcox additionally attended and mentioned this system was “incredibly touching,” with former college students and principals talking.

The college was based in 1949 and named for Chandler Clinton Tripp, who — in accordance with a 1949 Mercury Herald article — suffered from polio when he was a scholar at Roosevelt Junior Excessive however went on to graduate from San Jose State, the place he used a wheelchair. He later opened a library on the Tenth Road Pharmacy on Santa Clara Road however died a couple of month earlier than the college bearing his title opened. The unique class of 30 bodily disabled college students — principally with cerebral palsy — arrived on the campus, then on thirty third Road subsequent to Anne Darling Elementary College, in a particular bus and the college’s station wagon. It moved to Thornton Approach within the mid-Sixties.

“More and more students were transitioned into local junior highs and high schools and most graduated from high school and many went on to college,” Wilcox mentioned.

TWO WRITERS AT TWO DECADES: Metro weekly columnist Gary Singh and I each began writing our respective columns in 2005, which led James Leventhal, govt director of San Jose’s Institute of Modern Artwork, to ask us to debate what it’s been like writing about this place we name house for 20 years.

We’ll be gabbing away July 24 on the ICA gallery at 560 S. First St. from 5 to 7 p.m., across the similar time the weekly Pobladores Evening Market is getting going within the park proper exterior the ICA’s doorways. You’ll be able to RSVP at www.icasanjose.org.