Talk:San Jose (California)

San Jose is not, actually, the oldest city in the Silicon Valley. Mission Santa Clara antedates San Jose by several years. --(WT-en) Evan 09:58, 4 Feb 2004 (EST)


 * Actually, it's only a few months, as the mission and the pueblo were both established in 1777. However, the mission and town of Santa Clara are different entities, and the town of San Jose was established before the town of Santa Clara, which was established when the missions were secularized in the 1830s. 71.132.8.161 19:34, 16 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Events calendar
I crunched down the month-by-month events calendar to a set of attraction listings, which is usually the way we do it. --(WT-en) Evan 01:54, 8 Jul 2004 (EDT)
 * looks better (WT-en) Goodralph 01:59, 8 Jul 2004 (EDT)
 * Fine by me. (WT-en) Chip 02:13, 8 Jul 2004 (EDT)

Do you know the way to San Jose?
As a native San Josean, I would like to add a hardy amen to the following part of the article:

People who ask, "Do you know the way to San Jose?" (in reference to the 1968 hit song recorded by Dionne Warwick) will be glared at.

Mission Ale House
The Mission Ale House has been closed since October of 2009. See: http://bit.ly/vNKtbn (WT-en) Weems 17:26, 16 November 2011 (EST)


 * Go ahead and remove it - just make sure you note that it's closed in the edit summary box so that anyone reviewing the article knows why it was removed. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 17:29, 16 November 2011 (EST)

Do you know the way to San Jose? Remove..
I propose we remove the line "People who ask, "Do you know the way to San José?" (in reference to the 1968 hit song recorded by Dionne Warwick) will be glared at." since it doesn't add anything to that section and I believe it refers to an older edit. —The preceding comment was added by 50.152.206.223 (talk • contribs)
 * I think that was meant as an attempt at humor, so if it can be re-worked to actually make the joke clearer that would be good (I'm skeptical, given that most people won't know the song), otherwise go ahead and remove it. -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 05:33, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

In-N-Out Burger?
San Jose has hundreds of notable and unique restaurants, not all of which can be listed here. I propose making room for more by removing our 4 instances of In-N-Out Burger, a chain with several hundred locations in six states. Peter Chastain (talk) 07:22, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Please do so. In-N-Out has some passionate fans who have added it to many articles, but per WV:Listings it is generally sufficient to mention what chains are available and/or popular in a sentence at the start of the section without going into detail about specific locations of every restaurant. -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 07:30, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Although I always search out and visit unique restaurants when I visit an area I have to admit I always when arriving in California head out at least once for an In-N-Out Burger. I think they should be treated differently from global chains like McDonalds and Burger Kong. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:33, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The point of the "Boring places" guidance is that chains are alike. Adding a line of prose that says that San Jose has four In-N-Out locations should be fine, but it's unnecessary to give contact information and a description of each one, particularly for a city that has hundreds of non-chain restaurants. -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull;
 * San Jose is known as a place to get great Vietnamese food. That's much more unique than its having 4 branches of a statewide chain. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:22, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, there was one In-N-Out heading with a long description and 3 (not 4) sub-listings. I collapsed that into a single mention of the 3 locations. Anyone can get directions by clicking the corporate web link or phone number. Peter Chastain (talk) 10:40, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I just added the address and directions for the location closest to a freeway. I don't really see In-N-Out as a destination, but people might want to stop there on their way to somewhere else. Peter Chastain (talk) 11:45, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Not a destination if you have lived some time in California, but a destination for visitors from other countries.--Traveler100 (talk) 11:57, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * While we are on the topic of fast food in San Jose. Would you consider an entry for Senor Jalapeno?--Traveler100 (talk) 12:00, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've not eaten there. You convinced me that In-N-Out is un-boring enough to warrant inclusion. Can you make me want to go to Senor Jalapeno? Peter Chastain (talk) 10:00, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Well it is very popular at lunch time with office workers in the area. A step up from a Chipotle but not as authentic a feel as some of the taquerias (but then Athena Grill has an entry in Sandta Clara, and although good I would not say authentic Greek). You would not go there for a dinner engagement but if you are looking for something fast and good value for the money while working or on the move it is a reasonable option. --Traveler100 (talk) 10:52, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I just noticed the Senor Jalapeno website says they are in Sunnyvale. Perhaps you could raise the issue (or just add it) there.Peter Chastain (talk) 01:47, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Restaurant list organization
We currently list 12 American-style restaurants, nearly twice the number suggested by our 7+2 policy, and now I would like to add one more, Harry's Hoffbrau, which has great relatively inexpensive food (IMO) but, more to the point, hosts the Peninsula Banjo Band's rehearsal/singalong every Wednesday night, which is a fun event that visitors might want to try. Our total number of restaurants is large, but not excessively so for a city of a million people. Should we try to split the list of American restaurants somehow? (In the case of Harry's it might be more accurate to call the food international, but the emphasis on turkey puts it firmly into the American camp.) Should we divide all the restaurants geographically? (That could be problematic, since we are already dividing them by kind of food.) Or do we just get hard-nosed and say we're maxed out? Peter Chastain (talk) 02:09, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The 7+/-2 guideline is just a rule of thumb to determine when splitting things up might make sense. I don't see any issue with adding more restaurants given the size of the city - I think it's better to have a lot of good listings than to leave out good restaurants. As to using a different categorization for splitting up the list, if you change the categorization from cuisine to a geographic breakdown then you can further sub-divide by the standard price ranges (Budget, Mid-range, Splurge), which might be a better organizational structure. -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 02:14, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree with Ryan, by geographic breakdown then price range may be a good idea. Could do with adding coordinates to the listings too, I for one find the list difficult as I do not know the city well enough to go by street names. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:09, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Organize by districts?
As Ryan and Traveler100 have suggested in, above, the San Jose article could benefit by some geographic organization. Some neighborhoods, e.g., Japantown almost deserve their own article (except for the lack of hotels), while others, like Alviso, are worth spending at least an afternoon exploring. The once-separate identity of the former Italian-American enclave Willow Glen can still be seen in its shopping district, and the Vietnamese neighborhood, the name of which nobody can agree on, has some great little restaurants and small businesses. On the other hand, a lot of areas (south SJ, for one) are basically bedroom communities that can be described in a short paragraph. So, I think splitting San Jose into separate articles would be problematic, but I would like our readers to be able to consider neighborhoods individually, rather than as parts of an amorphous big city. I think a good start might be a neighborhood list and city map near the top: in the lede, or perhaps the Understand section? And then maybe divide at least the Eat section into those neighborhoods. And perhaps the Do section could include some bullets: Explore Alviso, Explore Japantown, etc., each of those being a paragraph listing some places to see. I feel is if I am trying to figure out something that has already been invented. Can someone point to an article where this has been done well? Peter Chastain (talk) 13:15, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Districtify?
What do others think of districtifying this article? Selfie City (talk) 03:44, 17 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Why? Seems fine without districts. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:43, 17 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, but there are a lot of listings, and these will probably only increase with time. Selfie City (talk) 00:13, 18 August 2018 (UTC)


 * IMO, there are not too many listings yet. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I think you're right. As a rough estimate, how many bytes are there usually in an article before it is districtified? Around 200,000? Selfie City (talk) 15:18, 18 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Don't know if there are any rules about this. In my opinion, when the number of listings in one section starts approaching 40-50 or there are more than 30 listings in several sections, I think it is appropriate to divide a city into districts. --ϒpsilon (talk) 15:42, 18 August 2018 (UTC)


 * That's sensible. Then let's wait a while and see if the article grows. Selfie City (talk) 15:44, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

BART expansion
As of June 13th, Milpitas and North San Jose are now connected to BART, and I plan to add an edit to the public transit section to reflect this. L. Challenger (talk) 13:54, 14 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I didn't take a look at this talk page before editing, so I didn't see your comment before making an edit! However, I've changed some parts of the article to include BART's expansion and VTA's route adjustments, so I would appreciate it if you could take a look and make any necessary changes or additions.
 * On another note, while not related to BART, I would like to mention here (on the talk page) that I made a new Flixbus entry for Downtown SJ and left the existing entry for Flixbus's service to East SJ... even though Flixbus stopped serving ESJ as a result of COVID-19 & took it off their website. I wasn't sure if I should have removed it or not, as I don't know if it's a temporary or permanent schedule change. GhostTurtle (talk) 02:42, 20 July 2020 (UTC)