Its dining rooms serve as gathering places for the meeting of minds. Its white-cloth tables constitute a leading venue for the brokering of power. Elected and appointed officials, loyalists and lobbyists, tycoons and technocrats, lawyers and judges and citizens with causes all gather at Eight Forty North First Street. They muster their spirits in the public and private dining rooms before elections, hearings and trials, and they gather again later to celebrate or commiserate on the outcomes. Businessmen meet bankers.
Companies discuss mergers.
Several couples have been married. There have been corporate kick-offs and new product introductions. Eight Forty provides two attendants to assist patrons in free parking. They work in a lot that at times resembles the San Jose Auto Show. People sometimes bring people to Eight Forty largely to be seen bringing people to Eight Forty.