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.