Burlingame Optical, Burlingame

Strolling into Burlingame Optical is more like the encountering the lobby of a five-star hotel than an eyewear shop. Yet, sure enough, frames by Chanel, Robert Marc, and Chrome Hearts—amid a sea of other designers—fill the shop’s elegant cherry cabinets just waiting to be tested. Eyewear specialists pace the marbled floor, guiding the nearsighted and farsighted to the perfect lenses, from single-vision to digital progressives. At an onsite lab, technicians perform finish grindings and fortify spectacles with anti-reflective coatings and miniature wiper blades.