If you’re a fan of either the food or the view at Scott’s Seafood Grill & Bar — and both are usually excellent — you’ve got a month to enjoy them before the downtown San Jose restaurant leaves CityView Plaza after 34 years.

Scott’s is closing the doors on its sixth-floor Park Avenue address Jan. 25 because the building will be demolished as part of Jay Paul’s redevelopment of the entire complex into three 19-story towers, which is planned to start next year. But fear not, if you love Executive Chef Sammy Reyes‘ lobster roll or the clam chowder: Scott’s has plans to quickly transition to a new home at 200 S. First St.

This corner space at South First Street and Paseo de San Antonio is expected to become the new home of Scott’s Seafood Grill & Bar in early 2020. 

Longtime downtowners know that as the ground floor spot at the historic Twohy building — and, yes, that means Scott’s Seafood will be going up against the Curse of Casa Castillo. Ever since San Jose’s Redevelopment Agency forced out the popular Mexican restaurant from that location in 2001, it has seen a string of eateries open and close. The most recent tenant, Social Policy, was there three years, and the cafe had disappointed quite a few people when it closed last April. (Even the Redevelopment Agency didn’t survive the curse, being dissolved in 2012).

San Jose Downtown Association Executive Director Scott Knies said he can’t think of a better place to thrive in that spot. “This is the one to break the Curse of Casa Castillo,” he said. “It’s a smart organization, with good food and good management.”

We will, however, miss the view from the rooftop patio, which was one of the best in downtown. But at least Scott’s Seafood will get to grill another day.

A LIFE WELL-LIVED: Anne Marie Chiaramonte, who owned the landmark Chiaramonte’s Sausage and Deli in San Jose’s Northside neighborhood, died on Dec. 5, less than a month after her 97th birthday.

To say she saw it all would be an understatement. As her grandson, Lou Chiaramonte Jr., shared in an email, “Unlike many in the Valley today, her life was not directly connected with the tech industry or with real estate,” he wrote. “She personally saw a landscape of orchards subsumed by an urban sprawl.” She could remember the USS Macon dirigible moored at Moffett Field and heard Bernard Hubbard, the Alaskan explorer and Jesuit known as “the Glacier Priest” speak at Santa Clara University.

Like many in the Valley of the Heart’s Delight in the mid-20th century, she did seasonal work at various canneries and later ran Chiaramonte’s with her husband Sam, whose grandfather opened the business in 1908, until the 1980s when their son took over. After Sam died in 2002, she lived on her own until her early 90s and was preparing to take part in an ethnographic study relating to the history of the city of Santa Clara.

Her funeral will be 10 a.m. Wednesday at Lima Family Santa Clara Mortuary, followed by a burial at Santa Clara Mission Cemetery.

DO WE LIKE “DOWÉ”?: At Friday morning’s annual San Jose Downtown Association Year in Review, Executive Director Scott Knies floated a new nickname for the area around Google’s planned transit village near Diridon Station: DoWé (pronouced “do-wee,” and yes, there’s an accent so maybe it should be “do-way”). It’s a truncation of Google’s own name for the area, Downtown West.

This isn’t Knies first attempt at renaming the Diridon area, having previously suggested “GoJo.” And, you might recall my former colleague Scott Herhold held a contest to name the area, with the winner being “The Rail Yard,” a suggestion by former Silicon Valley Community Newspapers publisher David Cohen.

I don’t think DoWé will stick any more than GoJo or the Rail Yard have. Of course, Downtown West has the qualities of being both bland and a mouthful, so I’m guessing by the time the project comes to fruition sometime in the next decade, something new will bubble up.

HERE’S TO 100: Speaking of views, there was a spectacular one enjoyed Tuesday by Jane Nevin, who celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by family and close friends on the top floor of the Channing House retirement community, overlooking Palo Alto and the Bay.

Nevin, born Jane Elinore Geiger in Ottawa, Kansas, met her husband, Harry Nevin, in San Francisco while she was a medical technician and he was working for United Airlines. They moved in 1951 to Palo Alto, where they raised their three children. Two of them, Laurie and Harry III, better known as Rocky, celebrated the centennial with her. Their older brother, Charles, died in a car accident in 1976 and dad Harry passed away in 2015.

An active orchid grower and violinist in her younger years, Nevin says her secret to longevity is picking the right parents and staying passionate about life.

COMMAND PERFORMANCE: The Cupertino Symphonic Band‘s upcoming holiday concert will probably be a breeze for conductor Jason McChristian after an experience he had earlier this autumn. He arrived home after rehearsal in September to find his wife, Emily, in labor. They made it only a short way toward the hospital before the baby decided to change the tempo from largo to allegro.

“I had the honor of deliver her in the passenger seat of our car at the front gate of Hellyer Park, a few blocks from our house in San Jose mere seconds before the paramedics arrived,” McChristian informed the orchestra the next day.

You can see the proud papa Dec. 19 at the Quinlan Community Center in Cupertino. The show starts at 7 p.m., and while admission is free, a food donation for West Valley Community Services is requested.

THE SHOW GOES ON: We’re all hoping for the recovery of political satirist Will Durst, who suffered a stroke in October. But his annual year-end retrospective, “The Big Fat Year End Kiss Off Comedy Show,” will continue on at downtown San Jose’s Tabard Theatre on New Year’s Eve even without him. Will’s wife, Debi Durst, comedian Johnny Steele and the rest of Durst’s merry band will keep things entertaining and probably channel our favorite grump. There are two shows planned Dec. 31 at 6 and 9 p.m., and tickets are available at www.tabardtheatre.org/tickets.

And there’s got to be an award somewhere for San Jose actor Keenan Flagg, who stepped into the role of Mr. Darcy this weekend for City Lights Theater Co.’s production of “The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley” after actor Jeremy Ryan suffered an ankle injury. It’s a big deal because Flag wasn’t a planned understudy — he had to learn the role on the fly. It runs through Dec. 22; get tickets at www.cltc.org.

WINTER BREAK: The year has flown by, and this is my last column for 2019. Don’t feel any FOMO; there are no great travel plans in the future, just cleaning out my garage and my email inbox, which are both overflowing (and mostly with junk). Have a safe and enjoyable holiday season, and I’ll see you back here in 2020.