About
Mortise cases, tower keypads and hybrid fobs all ride in the same van.
Mobile across San Mateo and the towns beside it since 2015, any hour, with the figure written down before the van pulls out. Here is who takes the call, what the shelves hold and how a visit runs.
4.9 / 5· 319 reviews from San Mateo & the towns beside it
2015
On San Mateo doors since
24/7
Phone and work order
90 days
Workmanship covered
Straight from the Hillsdale bench
Seventeen years on San Mateo doors, eleven of them under the Hillsdale name, and one habit through all of it: once a number is written down for you, I do not rewrite it on your step.
A Baywood mortise case from the twenties gets the same patience from me as a Bay Meadows keypad from last spring. When the old brass can be cleaned and re-pinned, I will not sell you its replacement.
Who is behind the 650 number
Hillsdale Lock & Key started taking San Mateo work in 2015 and has never rented a counter anywhere in the city. The name belongs to the district around the mall and its Caltrain platform, the commercial middle of town, because that is the ground this van actually works rather than a territory drawn up by somebody in another state. Quinn Halloran leads the bench and still runs calls off it, with 17 years between the bay and the ridge behind him — more years than the company has, which is the usual order of things: the trade first, the sign afterward.
A few plain statements about what this is not. No franchise agreement and no territory bought from a head office. No dealership, and no lock maker or carmaker with a say in what goes on the shelves. And no lead broker in the middle, taking your street address to auction. The 650 number on this site rings the dispatch that opens your work order, and whoever knocks is paid by the name printed at the top of your receipt.
What rides on the shelves for San Mateo doors
Twelve square miles here hold four eras of hardware at once, and the van loads for all of them on the same trip. Mortise cases, cylinders and period strikes for the 1920s and 1930s houses in Baywood, Aragon and San Mateo Park. Deadbolts, levers and knobs for the 1950s blocks in Shoreview and the side streets off El Camino Real. Keypad and app locks for the Bay Meadows towers and for North Central rentals whose owners live somewhere else. Aluminum deadlatches, hookbolts, cylinders and closers for the glass fronts on B St, 4th Ave and 25th Ave. Exit devices for kitchens and back-of-house doors, readers and fobs for small offices and medical suites, long strike plates and jamb reinforcement for frames that sagged rather than failed, and blanks with the programmers to match for most of what parks in this city, hybrids and EVs included.
Hauling all of that at once costs shelf space and fuel, and it buys the one thing worth buying: the door is finished on the day it was called in. A part that has to be ordered turns into a night with the door held shut by something improvised and a second trip that lands on somebody's bill, and neither of those belongs under a figure that was already written down.
Written Down First
The figure is entered on the work order before the van leaves. Four parts, each one in writing. The workmanship is warranted for ninety days, written down like the price.
- Neighborhoods served
- 8
- Towns beside them
- 5
- Hours
- 24, every day
- Average arrival
- 23 min
Downtown, Hillsdale, Bay Meadows, Baywood and Aragon, San Mateo Park, North Central, Shoreview and Coyote Point, Sugarloaf and Laurelwood.
Burlingame, Foster City, Belmont, Hillsborough and Millbrae, at the same written figures.
Late is ordinary here. Evenings after 8pm and overnight hours are stated inside the figure on the call.
The city is flat and compact. The hills above Highway 92 and the far side of Foster City run a few minutes longer, and the window says so.
Start to finish on an ordinary call
Your figure goes onto the work order while you are still describing the door. It comes off the published ranges — $112 to $195 to open a house, $24 to $40 a cylinder to rekey, $112 to $305 a door for new hardware, $142 to $395 for a car key — and the $89 service call sits inside that number instead of waiting at the foot of an invoice. The hour is quoted in the same breath: $45 more between 8pm and midnight, $75 more between midnight and 7am, both already folded in before you decide. Master key systems and access control are the one exception and go out in writing after the doors have been counted, since nobody can price a building they have not walked.
Say yes and a text leaves ahead of the van with the technician's name and a thirty-minute window. The citywide average is 23 minutes, Hillsdale itself nearer 15, and the winding streets of Sugarloaf and Laurelwood above Highway 92 closer to 30, which the window states rather than hides. At the address, proof that the place or the car is yours comes before any tool does. Then picks, decoders and bypass tools, in that order; a drill is a decision you make out loud after hearing what it costs, and making it moves nothing on the work order. You tap or swipe once the door closes properly, the itemized receipt reaches your email matching line for line, and ninety days of workmanship coverage is printed on that same sheet.
Where we talk you down, and where we bow out
A deadbolt that refuses to throw has usually lost its alignment rather than its insides: the door settled on tired hinges, and the cure is a strike plate moved a fraction and two three-inch screws driven into the stud, not a hardware sale. A household circulating five keys that do not match wants one rekey at $24 to $40 a cylinder, not five new locks. The mortise sets in Baywood and San Mateo Park were built to come apart, be cleaned, re-sprung and re-pinned, and going that way leaves the original brass exactly where the builder screwed it. A Bay Meadows keypad that has gone silent is usually four dead cells and a re-pairing.
Some jobs get declined on the phone, before anyone burns a drive across town. A short list of makes and model years keeps key programming behind a dealer-only tool, and you are better off hearing that at the start than after paying for a trip. A safe with a relocker inside, a restricted keyway whose blanks are cut only against a registered owner card, a repair the manufacturer will genuinely do for less — each of those gets called by its right name on the call. Turning work away is how the same phone keeps ringing the following year.
Where we work
San Mateo & the towns beside it, any hour
Pick your area for its own arrival time and the jobs we run there most.
FAQ
Asked about the name on the work order
Am I calling the company itself, or a service that farms the job out?+
The company itself, and San Mateo with the towns beside it is the whole of the territory. The 650 number on this site rings the dispatch that opens your work order, and your address is never sold on to a third van. The question is worth asking, because a good share of the national listings sitting above the map are middlemen: they book the call, hold back a margin and forward the address to whichever crew will work for what is left, which is exactly why a phone quote and a doorstep demand so often disagree.
How long has Hillsdale Lock & Key worked in San Mateo?+
Since 2015, on the same kind of work the whole way through: lockouts, rekeys, replacement hardware, storefront and suite doors, safes and car keys. Quinn Halloran, who leads the bench, has 17 years between the bay and the ridge. What that buys on a service call is arriving with the pattern already named — the century-old frames that settled in Baywood, the builder-grade sets still guarding 1950s doors off El Camino, the tower keypads that quit on their batteries, the aluminum fronts on B St that want a deadlatch rather than a new door.
Is there a store I can carry a lock into?+
No, and that is a decision rather than a shortage. A counter means paying rent on a room, keeping hours that suit the room, and asking you to drive to it on the day you can least afford the trip. The van stages between the downtown grid, the Hillsdale corridor and the 101 and 92 ramps and drives toward whoever called: 23 minutes on average across the city, about 15 in Hillsdale, about 30 up the hills above Highway 92. Key cutting, pinning and fob programming happen at your curb, off the bench that rides on board, inside the visit that started the call.
How do I know the person on my step is yours?+
Because you had the name before you had the knock. The text that leaves ahead of the van carries the technician's name and a thirty-minute window, and two seconds spent comparing that text with the person in front of you is the whole security procedure. If the two do not agree, send them away, owe nobody an explanation, and call the 650 number back. If a stalled lane on 101 or the climb above Highway 92 shifts the window, a second text tells you so.
Suppose the cylinder will not give without breaking it?+
You will hear about it before a tool touches the cylinder. House deadbolts, apartment cylinders, the old mortise sets, aluminum storefront latches and most car doors open non-destructively and go on working afterward. When a cylinder is seized by corrosion or a snapped key, already broken inside, or high-security to the point that picking fails, the technician stops, explains what a drill does to that particular mechanism, names the replacement part with its cost, and waits for your answer. Whichever way you decide, the figure written on the work order stays where it was.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
One call, one figure on the work order, the same figure on the receipt
Calls answered 24/7 across San Mateo and the towns beside it. The $89 service call, the labor and the parts are inside the number written down on the call, and the receipt matches it line for line.