San Mateo: See's Candies will celebrate 70th anniversary of Hillsdale shop

A party this Friday, May 8, will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the See’s Candies location at Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo - one of the oldest shops in the iconic California chain that’s now 105 years old.

See’s lovers are invited to meet the CEO, nibble on candy and share their See’s memories and stories of their favorite pieces. (If you’re a longtime Californian, and a particularly sentimental one, you may remember your parents’ and grandparents’ must-order candies.)

The first 100 guests in line at 10 a.m. will receive commemorative tote bags. Special promotions are planned throughout the day.

This shop holds special significance for CEO Pat Egan.

“The Hillsdale Mall was a pretty big part of my childhood, as I lived in San Mateo through most of elementary school," he said. "San Mateo and the South Bay, and this shop in particular, have supported See’s for most of our history.”

The circa 1954 Hillsdale was still an open-air shopping center when See’s sold its first candies here on April 26, 1956, and didn’t become an enclosed mall until many years later. The See’s shop has moved around as the center developed and evolved over the decades; to date, there have been four locations.

The Palo Alto See’s opened a month earlier in 1956 at Stanford Shopping Center. The See’s at Valley Fair Santa Clara opened at what was then an open-air shopping center on April 4, 1957; the company will celebrate the shop’s 70th anniversary next year.

Although those three shops are among the chain’s oldest, they aren’t the oldest. That distinction is held by shops in Los Angeles and South San Francisco.

Utilizing recipes from his mother, Mary See, founder Charles See opened the company’s first shop in 1921 at 135 Western Avenue North in LA. (Read the fascinating history of the company in the Bay Area News Group’s 2021 See’s centennial feature and the timeline that includes Lucille Ball and Warren Buffett.)

Details: Friday’s event will begin at 10 a.m. at See’s Candies, located on the lower level near Ecco at Hillsdale Shopping Center, 60 31st Ave., San Mateo; sees.com

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This story was originally published May 7, 2026 at 9:24 AM.