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United Nations Association Run and Walk for Peace - September 24
The City of Berkeley is co-sponsoring the United Nations Association's 13th annual Run and Walk for Peace to be held on September 24, 2011 at Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley. Many local businesses are supporting this event with donations. We aim to register about 400 runners and walkers and will encourage them to support our business partners. This event raises money for UNA's educational programs, the Alameda County Community Food Bank, and the United Nations World Food Program. www.UNAusaEastBay.org/runforpeace
Andronico’s Markets, the 82-year old supermarket chain founded in Berkeley, filed today for bankruptcy in Oakland. Four of the seven existing Andronico’s stores are in Berkeley: on Telegraph, Shattuck, University and Solano (the original store, founded in 1929).
Berkeleyside reported on the financial difficulties of the chain in May, and on a short-lived recapitalization plan.
The company’s announcement quotes CEO Bill Andronico today: “This is a bittersweet moment in our history. We have struggled mightily to keep going, but the combination of the economic downturn and a broken balance sheet was too heavy a burden.” In its bankruptcy filing, the chain listed debts of between $10 million and $50 million. The company is negotiating for financing and is also considering a sale to a private investor group.
The four Berkeley Andronico’s stores have been suffering recently from thin stocking of goods in comparison to local rivals. At the high end, it faces tough competition from two Berkeley Bowl locations and Whole Foods Markets. Safeway, which has ambitious plans to renovate its Berkeley and Berkeley-border sites, provides significant middle-market competition, and Costco in Richmond and Grocery Outlet (a Berkeley-based company) provide low-cost competition.
Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, a four-year old chain owned by the giant UK company Tesco, has been looking for a Berkeley site, according to people familiar with commercial property in the area. Depending on the financing Andronico’s secures from bankruptcy, at least one of the Berkeley Andronico’s sites might be a target.
NEW DIRECTION Arts & Crafts furniture store The Craftsman Home at 3048 Claremont Avenue closed its doors after many years on August 13. Owner Lee Jester says he’s moving on to new ventures, still specializing in American Craftsman-style home furnishings.
SHORT HOP Swiftly moving in to the old Craftsman Home space is clothing boutique Personal Pizazz, run by former BHS Vice-Principal Laura Leventer, which sells a wide range of separates and suits, formal as well as casual, and offers personal shopping. The store doesn’t have far to go as it is currently just around the corner at 2842 Prince Street.
SMOKIN’ Joshua Kemper opened Smokey J’s BBQ earlier this summer, and the place is getting great reviews from the likes of East Bay Express, Yelp and Chowhound. The Oakland native is serving Kansas City-style BBQ at 3015 Shattuck Avenue.
CHOCOHOLIC ALERT UC Berkeley graduate Arcelia Gallardo will open Casa de Chocolate in one of the former Wrights Garage retail spaces on Ashby at College. Gallardo’s passion is pre-Columbian culture, chocolate and food.
BEAUTY BEAT With its vibrant orange façade and powder blue door, you can’t miss Botanicá Oyá Niké, a cosmetics, beauty supplies, and perfume store, that recently opened at 3025 Adeline Street, near Ashby.
BEAUTY BEAT With its vibrant orange façade and powder blue door, you can’t miss Botanicá Oyá Niké, a cosmetics, beauty supplies, and perfume store, that recently opened at 3025 Adeline Street, near Ashby.
On Tuesday, Aaron and Monica Rocchino quietly opened the doors to their new business, an artisan butcher shop where the term “snout to tail” really comes into its own.
The Local Butcher Shop, in the old Red Hanger Kleaners space on Cedar Street in the Gourmet Ghetto, has already attracted dozens of curious foodies.
One-on-one customer service, offering cuts of meat hewed from whole carcasses, is the principal order of business. But providing some meat — most likely beef — to Aaron Rocchino’s former boss, Alice Waters at Chez Panisse, is also on the cards.
Rocchino joins a long line of Chez Panisse alumni who have gone on to open their own food businesses, many of them locally. He is also part of a movement centered in the Bay Area that is focused on the provenance of meat, sustainable raising methods and informed, responsible butchery.
The Rocchinos, who met when they were both working at Oliveto Restaurant nine years ago, have been working towards this moment for years. As Berkeleyside reported in May, the couple believe there’s a void in the market for restaurant-quality, sustainable meat for home customers.
Aaron and Monica Rocchino: their goal is to bring restaurant quality meat to the home cook
“Being in the restaurant business exposed us to great meats,” says Monica. “The impetus for us is that we wanted to get that quality to home cooks.
“Most stores sell boxed meats,” she continues. “And most restaurants don’t have the staff or space to accommodate whole animals. But farmers invest a lot of time and energy into raising their animals and we want to reflect that.”
Once its walk-in meat cooler is up and running, with its traditional hook-and-rail system, the new shop will be taking in whole carcasses of cows, pigs and sheep, and using every part of the animals, be it to create some stewing lamb, a jar of rendered fat, dog food or pork charcuterie.
The pair are also putting into play some innovative thinking when it comes to what they charge. They are implementing a “holistically structured” pricing system. This works by dividing up animals into three sections — front, middle and rear — and pricing accordingly. The thinking is that there is no rationale for charging more for so-called “choice” cuts of meat.
Butcher John Hogeland, who was previously at Whole Foods for 11 years, prepares cuts of meat at the newly opened Local Butchers Shop
“For the farmer and for us the costs are fixed. It was the meat packers and distributors who decided to put a value on certain cuts, like tenderloin or rib-eye steaks,” says Monica.
Aaron says there’s another reason some parts of the animal have traditionally been priced more highly: the easier it is to cook the more costly it will be. Cuts that require slow-cooking tend to be cheaper.
Thus, what the customer has come to consider as a higher quality cut will be selling for significantly less at The Local Butchers Shop than at other local stores.
Monica Rocchini behind the counter at the new butcher shop
The shop has been designed to look spotless and airy with an emphasis on transparency — butchers cut meat in full view of the customers, there’s a large viewing window on the meat cooler, and all the meat is displayed with chalk-board signs in frontfacing cases. “Nobody is going to turn their back on you while cutting or packing your meat,” says Monica.
The remodel was overseen by Andrea Ray Croyle from Berkeley architect firm Kahn Design Associates, and Kaufman Construction, also Berkeley-based. To save money, the couple did much of the work themselves, including painting the walls a combination of crisp white and black chalkboard. White subway tiles complete the clean look.
Roxy and Hubert Schaefer from Albany bought house-made pork fennel sausages at the new store on Thursday
The exposed wall of the meat cooler is clad in reclaimed redwood. “It was the fence of neighbors of friends in San Rafael,” says Monica. “We took it home and power-washed it, then spent 13 hours installing it.”
Everything sold in the store, apart from spices – including all the meats, the rubs and vinegars, marinades and artisan sodas — comes from no more than 150 miles away.
The farmers who supply The Local Butcher Shop include Mac Magruder of Ingel-Haven Ranch in Potter Valley, Mendocino (beef and pork), Hudson Ranch (pork) and Don Watson (lamb), both in Napa, Phillip Paine in Sonoma (squab), Liberty Farm in Sonoma (duck), Bill Niman of BN Ranch in Bolinas (turkey), Mark Pasternak of Devil’s Gulch Ranch in Nicasio (rabbit), Riverdog Farm in Yolo County (pork), and Gleason Ranch in Bodega (chicken and pork).
Meat cuts are priced according to their location on the animal -- front, middle or rear
The Local Butcher Shop has a staff of nine as well as the Rocchinos. They are Ross Woller who came from Oenotri Restaurant in Napa and is in charge of all the charcuterie and “added value” products, Seth Crabtree who hails from charcuterie company Boccalone, sandwich master Kel Troughton, Bill McCann who has worked as a butcher for 40 years, John Hogeland who was at Whole Foods for 11 years, Liz Halbig who went to culinary school, works at Holistic Hound and is an expert on dog food, and Enrique Martinez who splits his time between the shop and his other post as a server at Chez Panisse.
The store sells a daily sandwich — on Tuesday it was braised Magruder pork shoulder with grilled onions, tomato, mixed greens and feta on an Acme herb deli roll, Wednesday was roast beef.
“We have an idea of a place where people come in and sip wine and nibble on charcuterie while they choose their meat,” says Aaron. This concept will need to remain unrealized for now, however, as the pair don’t have the required permits for serving drinks.
“But one day, perhaps,” says Monica. “Either here or maybe somewhere else.”
It’s clear this energetic couple has “the vision thing” down pat. Meanwhile, they have a new business to run. The Local Butcher Shop has its grand opening on Tuesday August 30, but is serving customers now.
A viewing window has been cut into a wall of reclaimed redwood to allow customers to look into the shop's meat cooler
The complicated relationship between UC Berkeley and the City of Berkeley, sometimes rewarding, sometimes vexed, will come under the spotlight this fall in a series of discussions titled The University and the City: Ideas for Partnership.
The first of the evening discussions, on the controversial idea of creating a student-majority City Council district, will be next Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church on Dana Street. Panelists include Councilmember Kriss Worthington, Berkeley political science professor Bruce Cain, and vice-president for external affairs of the Associated Students of the University of California Joey Freeman. Berkeleyside’s Lance Knobel will moderate the discussion.
“The relationship between the city and the campus has been strained over the last few decades,” said Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, who has been instrumental in organizing the series. “All of us felt that the more lines of communication that we opened up, the more collaboration there will be.”
The second discussion, on Wednesday, October 19, at Berkeley City College, will examine Berkeley and environmental sustainability. The panel will consist of Timothy Burroughs, climate action coordinator for the City of Berkeley, Lisa McNeilly, UC Berkeley’s director of sustainability, Jason Trager, environmental sustainability director for the Graduate Student Assembly, and Claire Evans, lead coordinator of the UC Berkeley Compost Alliance. Jason Mark, editor of the Earth Island Journal will moderate.
The final discussion asks “How can we improve our arts, food and entertainment districts?” To be held on Wednesday, November 9, at a venue still to be confirmed, it will include Jim Peters, president of the Responsible Hospitality Institute, David Mayeri, former COO of Bill Graham Presents, Kemi Amin, program director of Buy Local Berkeley, and Noah Stern, former president of ASUC. Polly Armstrong, CEO of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, will moderate.
This series is sponsored by the Office of Mayor Tom Bates, Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Darryl Moore and Susan Wengraf, UC Berkeley Office of Government and Community Relations, Berkeley City College, Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Berkeley Association, Telegraph Business Improvement District, Livable Berkeley, as well as Berkeleyside.
COFFEE CLOSE-UPS Peet’s Tea & Coffee is to open a new store in the old A’Cuppa Tea space on the corner of College and Alcatraz Avenues, no doubt sending shivers down the spines of Cole Coffee aficionados which is at the other end of the block at 2007 College. It will be the ninth Berkeley store for Peet’s which was founded in the city in 1966. As we reported in July, A’Cuppa Tea is shunting down to 2992 College in the Elmwood, into one of the spaces formerly occupied by H. Tulanian & Sons Oriental Rug Cleaning & Repair.
SOLANO MOVES Rumor has it an independent pharmacy is to move into the former Three Goddesses dance studio at 1831 Solano, next door to the still vacant Front Row video store. Details when we have them.
Spa Organica on Colusa
BEAUTY BLITZ Aloe-cucumber hydration or chocolate-mint dream facials are available at the eco-organic Spa Organica that opened this summer at 884 Colusa Avenue. The spa uses only organic, vegan and eco-friendly products and offers make-up services, waxing, massage, and spa parties too (hat tip: Wendy Cohen).
New: Indian restaurant Zaika
NEW FLAVORS A Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony was held last week to mark the official opening of Indian restaurant Zaika at 2050 University Avenue in the historic Koerber Building. The eatery, which began serving customers on August 4, offers “authentic cuisine from the Indian sub-continent” and prides itself on being kid- and student-friendly. Sports games are shown on a big flat screen TV.
HOMERIC CUISINE Troy, a new Greek restaurant in the Elmwood at 2985 College, has taken over the Marc 49 wine bar space, which itself superseded Flame Burger only last year. The space has seen rapid turnover of late. Troy specializes in wraps, such as the Melitzano with grilled eggplant, red pepper and capers, as well as the expected Souvlakis, and a range of entrées.
WALK THE WALK Mark your calendars: A host of restaurants and food businesses are taking part in the Solano Avenue Restaurant Walk on Tuesday, October 4th, 6-9pm. The line-up includes Bistro 1491, The Cape Cod, iScream!, Jerusalem Organic Kitchen, Solano Grill & Bar, Timbao and The Xocolate Bar. Tickets cost $20 and are available by calling organizers Albany and West Berkeley Lions Club on 510-401 7759.
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Chamber Goes Carbon Neutral
