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For anyone who's ever shopped there -- be it noon on a Tuesday or 6 p.m. on payday -- Berkeley Bowl has pretty much always been a shitshow. Bulk granola-buying hippies elbow aside gourmet grannies in the ultra-narrow aisles, and hundreds of shopping carts squeak by one another in the endless stock exchange of Asian pears and celeriac. And forget about Thanksgiving week. Well now, Berkeley denizens will have yet another gourmet grocery to fight over (to add to four Andronico's, a Whole Foods and a Wild Oats soon-to-be Trader Joe's) as Berkeley Bowl opens a second store, Berkeley Bowl West, about 15 blocks west of the current store on Ashby Ave (map).
In any other place in the country, building a much needed expansion of a well-loved grocery store in the middle of a semi-industrial neighborhood several blocks from a freeway would probably be a pretty easy feat. But naturally, because it's Berkeley, the seven-year planning and construction process for the store came with a truckload of obstacles, including a group of NIMBYs who hired their own traffic consultant to contest the findings of the city's traffic study. But yes, come June 4th, chefs of the East Bay can finally rejoice in the dream of reasonably priced porcini mushrooms without losing their minds finding parking.
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Beautiful building, great addition to Berkeley...too bad soon it will be filled with the most self absorbed, passive aggressive, mean-hearted but liberal-voting humans the world has ever known.
Good. It will absorb them so the rest of us can shop, elsewhere, in peace.
Oddly, I've never had a problem at BB and I mean oddly in the sense that I know other people have experienced issues, and I've witnessed some of the entitlement first-hand. For some reason, it steers clear of me. Don't know why, but I'm not going to question it.
It likely means you're a part of the problem. Leave your cart in the middle of the aisle much?
Goodness, I hope so.
I usually just grab what I need that day without using a cart.
Looks like it's been deliberately designed with too few parking spaces so customers will have something to fight over. That way, customers work out their aggression before they enter the store.
Out in the sticks, our neighborhood Trader Joes with too few spaces generates 1 or 2 police calls each weekend.
THAT's a hippy dippy supermarket?
looks more like a software company. or a defense plant.
s'okay, I hear the wood accents are rubbed down with patchouli oil every night.
Needs more murals.
Still no bowling? I'm disgusted.
the first berkeley bowl on shattuck was in an old alley, actually.. (that's the origin of the name)
anyone else remember that tiny building, when the bowl was little more than produce and oat flakes? i think bulk was in the alley's old snack area. mad authentic old skool berkeley, yo.
You guys couldn't have chosen a better East Bay grocery store to highlight, this place is fucking TITS. I can't wait for the new store to open, the original is really really really crowded, I actually waited for half an hour yesterday just in the parking lot to get a space.
Wild Oats? Might want to do a fact check on that. Hasn't been a Wild Oats on University in quite a while, despite what SF Gate says.
Probably since Whole Foods acquired them.
I live two blocks from this store. I have no complainants. I am stoked that I can walk there. I walked into the store today didn't know they weren't open. Its stalked and ready to go. By the way there is underground parking, I think like 100 stalls or so.