From today's SF Chronicle

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Neighborhood girds for Berkeley Bowl West
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, May 27, 2009


(05-26) 19:51 PDT -- Finally, after seven years of planning, there might be enough heirloom tomatoes in Berkeley for everyone.

Berkeley Bowl, the landmark grocery famed for its fresh produce and gourmet fare, is slated to open its sprawling sister store next week. Berkeley Bowl West will be a larger, more spacious version of the original, offering everything from organic soybeans to 24-ounce cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

The $30 million store is located at Ninth and Anthony streets, a block off Ashby Avenue and just west of San Pablo Avenue on the site of a former roofing company. "In a way it's really gratifying to see it finally open, but it's sad, too," said architect Kava Massih. "We've all been working on this for so long; it's like seeing your kid go off to college. You just can't believe it's over."

Owners Glenn and Diane Yasuda began planning for the new store in 2002, just three years after moving from their original digs at a former bowling alley into a renovated Safeway on Oregon Street.

Anyone who's shopped at Berkeley Bowl on a weekend can attest to the store's desperate need for expansion. The parking lot is a gridlocked swamp of road rage, a demolition derby of Priuses and rusty old Volvos vying for parking spots.

The produce section is often described as the "Cairo of shopping carts," as dozens of very focused and aggressive gourmands fight over the purple potatoes and fresh water chestnuts. The checkout lines can be staggering, like something out of East Berlin.

"We get pretty crowded, with the traffic and parking and whatnot," said the store's general manager, Dan Kataoka. "We wanted to try and alleviate some of that."

The owners hope Berkeley Bowl West is the answer. The new store will have 211 parking spaces, about twice what's available at the Oregon Street store, and wider aisles. The produce and bulk foods sections will be larger and the lines should be shorter, thanks to 16 checkout stands.

The new store will include a 96-seat cafe and expanded kitchen, providing a wider array of prepared food. It also features a 3,000-square-foot community room, underground parking garage, staff rooms for wine tasting and cheese preparation, spacious offices and a warehouse serving both stores. The entire project is about 140,000 square feet, making it one of the largest grocery operations in the East Bay.

Berkeley Bowl West will be the only large grocery store in West Berkeley, but it joins a crowded field in the city at large. Berkeley, home to the gourmet ghetto and birthplace of California cuisine, is rife with food stores, ranging from specialty shops to full-service groceries.

In addition to the original Berkeley Bowl, the city of 100,000 hosts a Grocery Outlet, Wild Oats, Whole Foods and four Andronico's. Also, the Safeway on Shattuck Avenue is undergoing a major renovation, and a Trader Joe's is slated to open downtown within the next year or two.

But Bowl managers are confident the new store will have a solid base of customers.

"I think Berkeley Bowl has created its own niche with our produce and reasonably priced groceries," Kataoka said. "But it's been an uphill battle all the way."

The delays in construction were due to myriad obstacles, including Berkeley zoning laws, the economic implosion and opposition from neighbors, who thought the project was too large and would bring the Bowl's legendary parking nightmare to their quiet streets.

"The last thing we need here is huge traffic jams," said John Curl, chair of West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies, which fought for the store to be smaller. "With its cachet, we expect this store to draw people from around the region, and we don't know what that's going to do to traffic and parking around here."

The store is set to open June 4. Neighbors, who at one point hired their own traffic consultant to contest the city's traffic study, are now resigned to the store finally opening. Entrances will be on Ninth and Anthony streets, a block off Ashby Avenue.

"I stopped shopping at the other Berkeley Bowl because of the traffic jams," Curl said. "But if there's no traffic at this one, I'd be happy to shop there. They have great produce."