One way to go about this is to think about our "regulars" and then pick something that's geographically "the least painful" for most of them.

Way2fractious comes all the way in from the Central Valley, so unless we move it to something right off Highway 580 in the East Bay, I doubt much of anything will make a differece to him.

I'd suggest that San Mateo, would be a good place to start looking.

O'Neills Irish Pub
34 S B St
San Mateo, CA 94401
(650) 347-1544

http://www.tisoneills.com/

I've been there, though only 2-3 times and it was pretty nice, though quiet, but that was years ago when rumour had it that they had a trad music season....they didn't.

Anyway I hear that Behans in Burlingame is closed, which is too bad. I don't know of any Scottish-style pubs in the central Peninsula.

I DO know of an Irish place on Castro Street in Mountain View.: St. Stephens Green

http://www.ststephensgreen.com/

This is a nice place, half restaurant, half bar. There's lots of room in the back and it'd be kid-friendly.

Fibbar and Molly Magee's is also on Castro, but that's really a bar, not so kid friendly...lots of pool tables, really loud music and so on.

Not Irish or Scottish, but a great Bier Garden that's popular with a lot of Silicon Valley types is the Tied House in Mountain View

http://tiedhouse.com/

...which is two blocks north of Castro Street in Mountain View. They have an enclosed patio out back. The view is a parking lot, but what the heck...and kids can hang out there.

The nice thing about all of these venues is that they're sort of in the middle of really interesting "downtown areas", where there's lot of other stuff to do. For example, the best Blues club on the Peninsula is just three blocks from O'Neils. There are a dozen other restaurants on B street and in the vicinity.

Castro Street in Mountain View is chock-ablock with various ethnic restaurants, used bookstores, coffee places, Chinese grocery markets, Red Rock coffee and the like. Also, the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts is about six blocks away.