John Glionna banned for life from Berkeley Bowl

So the Berkeley Bowl piece that ran today as a Column One touched a chord: I received dozens of e-mails from folks who know the store and agree with the story's take on Berkeley as a place where the screws of liberalism and sanity are racheted a little too tightly.

Most people got a kick out of the fact that offenders who commit crimes such as felony food noshing without paying are banned from the Bowl for good.

But not everyone was laughing. Owner Glenn Yasuda (in photo, at right) called to complain about  the story's tone, especially the portrayal of the management's tough line on food samplers.

The upshot, he told me: I've been banned from the Berkeley Bowl. For life.

--John Glionna

Photo: Randi Lynn Beach / For The Times

 

Comments

[fred dodsworth]

You should be banned.
Folks tend to forget that running a small neighborhood business, employing nearly a hundred Union employees, paying real estate taxes and workers comp and FISA and health insurance leaves little in profits for any but the mega-corporations.

As someone who has shopped at Berkeley Bowl for years, I too, have seen 'sampling' turned into a 'Free food for the homeless program' at the Bowl. It's one thing to taste a berry to make sure they're ripe and entirely another to stuff your face with free food at the shopkeeper's expense.

In his 70s, Glen runs a very successful, very delicious grocery. He gets up every morning long before you are awake to get the very best from the area's wholesale produce markets. He deserves and needs to make a reasonable profit so that we can continue to sell great quality items at reasonable prices. If you disagree, vote with your dollars and shop at Safeway where too often the food is literally spoiled! And sample all you want of their toxic, pesticide-saturated, plastic-covered, fake food.

[Darrell Rupe]

Man, I live in Berkeley. You're talking about one of the best food markets of all time. I'd recommend some serious apologizing. You'll be happier in the end.

[Jack]

It's guys like Mr. Yasuda who give liberals a bad name. Sure it's one thing to ban someone who samples food without paying for it. It's another thing entirely to ban a reporter for life based on a bad review. After all, the last time I checked, we still live in a nation where we're allowed to speak our minds -- that's one right even King George Bush II hasn't been able to take away from us yet.

Exercise your rights. Boycott the Berkeley Bowl until Mr. Yasuda grows up...

[jad]

I don't know, Fred. The main difference between what you call "sampling" and what you contemptuously refer to as "Free food for the homeless" seems to be the income of the person doing the sampling. I agree: "It's one thing" as you say, for a homeless person to steal food; it's quite another for a wealthy patron to steal the same food to see if it's up to their standards.

[csalam]

I've shopped at the 'bowl' for years and have friends and family who have worked there so know it well. It can be crowded but it's by no means as unreasonable and odd as you described it. It's just an exceptionally good and busy local store in my opinion run very professionally and we're lucky we have something like it in our town. That goes double for Glenn and Diane based on what I've heard. I don't know who mailed you re: the 'screws of liberalism' or how you can pass off cheap shots as journalism in a paper as respected as the LA times, but if these 'dozens of folks' have something to say, let's see their comments here. I think you're really reading too much into whatever you've heard. It's just a really good grocery store with an excellent produce department and long lines. No more. No less.

[Huh?]

Did I just read this correctly? A member of the media banned because he wasn't gushingly complimentary? Did Berkeley just make a play usually reserved by McCain/Palin?

[Wondering]

So much for "free speech" in the Berkely Bowl, eh? Don't like your tone, you're banned for life. Sounds more like a dictatorship.

[Willie FuFu]

Fred, Darrell, I don't get your anger regarding the original Column One piece. If anything, it makes the people and the city of Berkeley look bad. The store's management is simply dealing with the group dynamic of the place.

You couldn't pay me to live there. Berkeley and its residents epitomize the saying "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

I'll take Ralphs in Koreatown over Berkeley Bowl any day. At least I don't have to shop next to old hippies who apparently have developed a keen sense of entitlement.

[Jones II]

Berkeley Bowl is a dump. way over priced and smells like arm pits. I never shop there.

[Atter Cob]

So basically you stated your opinion of the store and because it was not all positive he banned you? That's incredibly petty of him. It's a great grocery store, but apparently the popularity has gone to his head. It's also very contrary to the same liberal mentality that drives most of his customers to shop in his locally run store. Free speech, is not allowed at Berkeley Bowl.
Also, the whole banned for life thing is ridiculous... how do they expect to remember the faces of every banned person? It seems pretty clear that Glenn Yasuda has some anger issues.

[Mary Duan]

I've only lived in Berkeley for about three months (Hi Fred, when's the next neighborhood wine night?) but I have to say, shopping at the Bowl makes me vaguely homicidal. Strike the vaguely--it makes me absolutely homicidal. I feel my blood pressure rise the second I get anywhere near the parking lot. They should call a SIG alert on the produce section. Covering the LA riots was less stressful.

Having said that--great produce.

[Ted Chabasinski]

I live in Berkeley and shop at the Bowl often. I even sample stuff once in a while, and no one has made a big deal out of it.

They have really good food at good prices, and I'm not amused at this snide Berkeley-bashing.

I think Los Angeles is hardly a place to make nasty comments about the quality of life in Berkeley. I mean, if the cops see someone walking on the street in LA, you get arrested for not driving, right?

EVERYBODY knows that's true.

[wescovington]

I think all this story needs is to find out that Glenn Yasuda lent somebody here an armoire.

[SJ]

Why you gotta hate on the bowl? Have fun shopping at Ralphs.

[samin]

i live in berkeley, am a professional cook, and shop at berkeley bowl only under the most dire circumstances. my blood pressure rises when i get within a block of that place, and i completely disagree about the supremacy of its produce. i've been cursed at in the parking lot, and wrongfully accused of stealing by an employee, who (illegally, i later found out) body searched me for some cough syrup when i had a 104 degree fever. when she didn't find anything, i didn't get an apology or anything--she and the security guard just turned and walked away.

i loved the piece, and think it's really funny that the author is now "banned for life." i love living in berkeley, but sometimes the people really get to me. i totally get what the piece was trying to convey, and besides, we all have to have a sense of humor about things, right?

[Josephine Talgat]

Glionna probably should do some fact-checking, here. I was at the Bowl today and tons of people sampled small items in produce (grapes, peas); nobody said a thing.

Last I heard, if you take a bite out of a peach at Safeway, they kick you out, too.

I've been there weekly for months and never saw a single one of the weird things mentioned in the article, which leads me to question where Glionna is getting his ideas...

...not to be too unkind to Glionna, but I think he's probably making things up or exaggerating for the sake of his LA readers who'll buy anything about "Berkeley weirdness".

Berkeley Bowl is just a ridiculously crowded, ridiculously popular grocery store. The prices are high for everything but produce, but gourmands love it because the selection is massive. There's really nothing much else to say about it.

Still, pleased to see a place I like get some press! Now I know why the produce is so good.

[GO BEARS!]

Berkeley Bowl = hippie battle ground.

All these old hippies are long expired in their ability to do battle against the man, the machine or whoever hippies will be hating on Nov. 5 once Bush is gone.

So now these old fart hippies do battle in the aisles and parking lots of BB. This article was completely dead on in its description of BB both the good and the bad. Sometimes when I'm pushing my cart i nodded off and swear I am actually at Medieval Times.

Regardless, BB is by far my favorite and THE BEST grocery store in Berkeley (and anywhere else I've been). The food is so good you forget about the manic hippies waiting to ram your cart with their priuses in the parking lot.

5 kinds of sweet potatos.... its amazing. to think i thought there were just yams.

[lawrence]

The bowl is fine - if you take a few valium 1/2 hr. before going in. I've never been to a place with such interesting and affordable foodstuffs that is so socially strung out and one puff away from being the next "columbine" in my whole life.

[Oh]

Very few Berkeley Bowl shoppers are the type who will stand near the fruit and eat at their hearts content. However, there are some shoppers who are as liberal as they can be will cut in line, leave their carts in line while they shop and then argue that their rights are more important than yours as they push their carts to the front of the line.

The Berkeley bowl staff usually will Zen out and let the customers argue while everyone else watches whats going on. The more righteous and indignant seem to always win as they smirk their way to the front of the line.

Oh, the food is the best part of this experience.

[Madison]

So, I too live in Berkeley and have heard about the Bowl's policies before but I find it amusing how they waylay "long time" customers. I mean, the only people who are going to be sampling are the people who have been there long enough to know that, until recently, its kind of expected, so now they're going through the trouble of banning customers who the bowl would still make a profit on. *boggle*

Also, its hardly a small neighborhood business. It might not be a chain but they make huge coin.

[ex-Berkeley guy]

The article was full of the ridiculous hyperbole and sloppiness that's becoming all too common in journalism these days. I'm still scratching my head over this graf:

"Store manager Larry Evans says the policy is a fair response to doctors, lawyers and college professors who help themselves to bags of cookies, nuts and vitamins, stick their fingers in pies and guzzle from bottles of sake, assuming the rules don't apply to them."

Did Larry Evans say all that? That someone he knows to be a doctor or lawyer came in guzzled sake or stole vitamins? If he did, why didn't we get more detail on this great anecdote? I wanna know which Cal professor is sticking his fingers in pie and chomping down vitamins. Sounds apocryphal to me. I know the writer is not covering politics, and you want a bit of style in Column One, but please. This type of cartoonish exaggeration does not belong in the LA Times.

That said, the ban is just as ridiculous ... but hey, I suppose Mr. Yasuda was just responding in kind.

[Patrick Cheatham]

Funny to read about The Bowl in the LA Times -- I've lived a half block from there for about 6 years, and have had all kinds of experiences. I will say that the staff there have always been very friendly and helpful. I won't comment on Berkeleyites, but I can tell you that the amount of car traffic The Bowl brings to my neighborhood is enormous. Being a pedestrian is an iffy thing to do.

Not sure I can link to things here, but here's a 360-degree panorama of the produce section at The Bowl. The article seemed a little short on pictures of the place. Enjoy!

http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/worldwidepanorama/wwp305/html/PatrickCheatham.html

[karen dapello]

wow, once again, everybody ready to jump on the "let's bash Berkeley" bandwagon??? being born and raised in Berkeley, i take offense at the whole color this article and it's commenters use. yes, Berkeley's different, and weird, and bizarre, and guess what? we really don't give a rat's ass what the rest of the world thinks of us, so just keep yapping.....you have no idea what a wonderful place you are missing, but that's okay, leaves more for us who DO appreciate the eccentricities of one of the most famous/infamous cities in the world!

[Jean Shirk]

I just read your story about the world's best grocery store, Berkeley Bowl. I shop there a few times a month, but except for the descriptions of the bountiful variety in the produce section, I didn't recognize the place.

Not once in the 10 or so years I've been shopping there has anyone ever been rude to me. Maybe it's partly in the way I approach it: I know the parking lot is going to be full, so I park behind the building and walk a little further. I know the produce aisles will be crowded, so I park my shopping cart and bring the produce to it, rather than wheeling my cart around the aisles. But maybe most of all, when I walk into Berkeley Bowl and gaze at the blessed heavenly food they offer, I am so darn grateful for the place that I walk around with a smile on my face the entire time. Who cares if you have to wait 15 minutes in line to buy the sweetest organic nectarines in California? Or the best fresh-baked bread? Or the Tofurky for Thanksgiving dinner? Me, I'm just thankful -- and I count my lucky stars that I get to shop at Berkeley Bowl!

[beefrank]

Yasuda can now officially be dubbed the 'Produce Nazi'....No apples for you!!!!! Get out!!!!

[JulieFC]

You must realize what your article does to your reputation, being a writer for a southern California newspaper . Another non-Bay Area journalist, writing a one-sided article bashing Berkeley for being "nuts" and on the crazy liberal train. How boring, how overdone, how old news.

Now LA residents, my husband and I shopped at Berkeley Bowl every weekend for several years while we were both students and working professionals in the Berkeley area. Never have we encountered rude service or rude customers. In fact, we have experienced just the opposite.

Is it crowded? Of course it's crowded - you yourself said it is the most selective (and may I mention, affordable - move over Whole Foods) in the country. Do customers ram each other with their carts and scowl at one another? Absolutely not. Where did you get this idea of angry Berkeley shoppers from?

Please do your research more thoroughly next time John. Don't be a hater because LA doesn't have something as unique, popular, and locally run as Berkeley Bowl.

[Jonathan King]

Not "gnoshing" ... the word is "noshing." The copy editor here was as asleep at the switch as whoever authorized this idiotic Page 1 in the first place. And what on earth does "liberalism" (whatever that may be) have to do with anything? Possibly the stupidest Page 1 I've seen in years ... you might think about re-hiring one of your recently laid-off, whaddya call them, reporters?

[jeff prescott]

it doesn't really matter...because glionna has been transferred to, i believe, outer mongolia.......................

[dave blake]

I agree with ALL the comments here (especially the Soup Nazi comparison, spot-on), but for three.

Our columnist's article was actually free of Berkeley-bashing, but I think we have to notch that up to a good editor. In his editor-free blog Glionna says: "I received dozens of e-mails from folks who know the store and agree with the story's take on Berkeley as a place where the screws of liberalism and sanity are racheted a little too tightly." Besides being incomprehensible (just what ARE the screws of liberalism and sanity? What does that mean?), it's a lamo resort to Jay Leno-level reductionism; Berkeley, like any place, is a mixture of liberal, illiberal, sane and pretty insane viewpoints and actions.

The real point about the Bowl is that Yasuda IS a bit nuts. In a decade he's seen his produce business turn into a national icon, while he remains, in his head and style, a small businessman. Now he's got so much business that he can afford his quirkiness; any other grocery store, of course, would be much more circumspect in dealing with the universal sampling problem.

As for Berkeley's vaunted liberalism, here's the skinny on how it relates to the Bowl. 13 years ago the powers that be, the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Berkeley Association, and the mayor, Shirley Dean (no liberal), worked hard to turn the vacant Safeway that now houses the Bowl into a MacFrugal's Bargain Center. The planning staff pitched in by commissioning a $25,000 study that conclusively demonstrated that a supermarket could never succeed at the site. The outraged, then much-more-racially-mixed neighborhood, reeling from the loss of its only supermarket, put on the biggest neighborhood-vs.-development interest battle in the city's history to stop it. From a block and a half away, Glen Yasuda, who at the time was only an aspiring player with the CofC and the other big guys, chimed in to insist that the city approve the MacFrugal's. Three years later he got a large SBA loan to move into the Bowl. So it goes.

The article also misunderstands the 2nd Berkeley Bowl Yosuda has gotten approval to build. It's not an overflow extension, it's a more-than-double-the-size state-of-the-art supermarket located by the freeway, and it's designed to become a Bowl that truly exerts a vast regional presence. (The present Bowl is miles from any freeway.) Its other purpose, in case you think Yasuda must be a liberal just because he's in Berkeley, is to scuttle his existing union.

Yasuda refused to allow his workers to unionize, and after a three-year struggle the NLRB was called in to supervise an election, in which Yasuda committed so many blatant federal violations (he fired every union supporter he could identify, and demoted the majority of the management so they could technically qualify to vote in the election) that the NLRB staff (and this is a staff run by a Bushie) recommended not just the election be revoted, but that the commission overturn the election and certify the union immediately. That's the only reason there's a union there now.

Three years ago, the current Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates (no liberal either) cut a deal with Yasuda to give his new Bowl a $7 million dollar land-use subsidy and to guide the project through the permit process while protecting it from any requirement that it be union, or even that the workers be allowed any consideration to try to unionize. As for the illusion that Berkeley is some sort of liberal bastion, right now the city is facing a battle for mayor between those same two old faces, Shirley Dean and Tom Bates; whoever wins, the city will have an unbroken 18-year streak of anti-union, pro-CofC mayors.

As for the other comments I take issue with: I can't back Fred Dodsworth on his homeless-bashing; the few rude people I've observed seemed plenty middle-class to me, and I've never observed anyone who might fit the homeless stereotype gorging themselves; believe me, Yasuda would have them out on their asses faster than you can down an heirloom cherry tomato. As for Jones II, who thinks the place reeks of armpits: I bet he's spending too much time by the durians.

[daveblake]

Pay no attention to disgruntled John King; he's clearly a lurking agnoshtic.

[Big Al]

Great story, John!

If the nutcases at the psycho grocery store can't take honesty, which you provided, then you're better off not going there.

As for the guy caught sampling the fruit last year, he was stealing. Eating without paying is stealing. Period.

[Big Ed]

Glad I live on the East Coast, that sounds insane.

[Mark A. Fisher]

I am an editor at a large Ohio newspaper and also a landlord. I'm baffled as to why this terrific piece would get Glionna banned, but I also maintain that few journalists understand -- or care much about -- the realities of running a business. One of our senior editors once asked me whether a visiting writer could use one of my apartments free for the summer. I was astounded at her failure to grasp that this was a $120,000 investment, for which I expected a return, just as I would if I had put the money into a CD.

[r3dqu33n]

I shop at Berkeley Bowl, and I enjoyed this article. While it contains some exaggeration (and some possibly questionable quotes), the exaggeration is slight. I do not know why some people have to lie in the comments about the lack of aggressiveness of Berkeley Bowl shoppers, but that aggressiveness is overwhelmingly present.

The Bowl offers the best deals in town and the widest selection of produce. It basically combines elements of a general supermarket, a Whole Foods, and various ethnic markets. A dollar stretches a lot farther at the Bowl than at the nearby Whole Foods.

Still the Bowl has smaller aisles than most supermarkets and an inadequate amount of parking. Outside the Bowl, the average Berkeley denizen may walk and talk slow by my East Coast standards, but once they're in the parking lot or inside the building they become rougher and ruder than any Masshole or Rhodie.

The first time I went to the Bowl I literally disassociated. I was almost run into so many times by a cart or a person that I eventually ended up at the checkout in a daze. I couldn't wait to get out of the place.

The good food and the prices brought me back, and over time I observed the culture of the Bowl. There are a lot of self righteous and entitled people in Berkeley, and some of their worst tendencies come out in cramped, competitive spaces.

I couldn't believe I saw people sampling produce and other food. It's unsanitary, and it's theft. Farmers markets have special taste stands as does Whole Foods, but the Bowl has signs against sampling. If customers took the time to read the signs, they would understand they were engaged in the wrong act of consuming in the store.

The aisles are only wide enough to stop one cart without blocking all traffic, yet people would park their carts across from others' making it impossible to walk by without them or me moving their cart. Other times, people would stop their carts and read labels for a long, slow time across from their cart. This type barely moves when you say excuse me.

Of course, a lot of people in the Bowl don't say excuse me. They just push on or shove on by, which just raises the tension level. There's a difference between learning how to navigate the Bowl by being quick in step and dodging well and just blazing your way through.

Some of this bad behavior may be due to oblivious. People may not be aware of how they're acting under these shopping conditions, while others seem not to care.

The area where the bad behavior is consciously chosen is the parking lot. It is frustrating to wait in or circle the lot for twenty minutes trying to find a space. There are other options. The majority of people opt for the convenience of the lot versus finding faster parking on the side streets. I have seen people yell over spaces, but I haven't seen any physical fights.

My funniest parking experience happened with a particularly (self) righteous dude. I was turning my car to get into an empty space. Another driver stopped short to get a space before my intended one. As I continued on, a guy blazed through the "exit only" next to my space. I continued on and parked. He actually got out of his car, and with a superior grin on his face came to dress me down for stealing his space. I let him know what happened, including the fact that he illegally entered the lot. He walked away deflated.

[Berkeleyite]

We shop at The Bowl and follow the "self-imposed rules" that others have mentioned: we walk there, and if we were stopping by in our car, would never venture into the parking lot; we get there early to get to the heirloom tomatoes before they're picked through. As for sampling, the employees doing are re-stocking all the time and I've never noticed them to be monitoring the sampling. The staffers stocking are wonderful. Whenever I've asked for help, they drop whatever they're doing to take me personally to what I need. Last time there, I asked for ginger; the staffer said, "Let me show you the regular Chinese ginger and the regular Thai ginger, and also I can show you the organically-grown ones." I don't think Mr. Glionna was really Berkeley-bashing. I know what he's trying to say. I go in there all high on the wholesomeness and choice of produce available there, at the amazing prices, happy to be living in a city that has both the Bowl and Chez Panisse and is so food-focused, and I smile to the hippie dude, the 30-something couple, the Cal students, all of them, but I too get all irritated at times. I yelled at a little girl once for throwing beautiful heirloom tomatoes against a box, telling her that a farmer worked very hard to grow that tomato. I ask people to move out of the way when they have conversation at the meat counter without really wanting anything there. I'd do that at Safeway if it got that crowded. Lastly, I leave you this...if you think the Bowl is crowded, try going to another Berkeley favorite, the Monterey Market, on a Saturday afternoon. We are willing to endure the supposed "armpit" smell and deal with a bit of duuress to get variety, seasonal, farmers market produce on our tables. It's called passion. By the way, it's not just hippies who shop there. I'm a 35-year-old non-hippie liberal, and there plenty of others there who will claim the same. I love the Bowl so much that if they banned me, I'd still love them. Maybe we are a bit crazy, but who cares?!

[Ben Welter]

Congrats, John. Well done.

[Dennis Buster]

Great story. The owner BANNED you for that? Seems like shoppers aren't the only ones who need thick skins at that store.

[vision63]

I've shopped there a couple of times a week for the past 10 years (sometimes more) and I've never even seen anything remotely cross there. I always taste a grape before I choose which ones (they'll have like 12 types of grapes) I'll buy but that's it. I've never been harassed. I've certainly seem people eat apricots and other things, which I think is going too far. If you give people an inch they'll take a mile. Also there are legions of people that want to bash Berkeley in general, so this kind of story functions as a subterfuge for attacking people and institutions that are liberal. Then other disgruntled types pile on. People that are satisfied (which I'm sure is 99 percent since you don't "have" to shop there) don't complain. You can always interview a few complainers and make it look like it's the norm.

Also

[Dan Brekke]

John, I think you just became the front-runner to be honorary grand marshall of the annual How Berkeley Can You Be? It would be best if the organizers could get you and Glenn Yasuda together on a float.

I liked the piece and was taken by one of the observations the manager made: that people in Berkeley are angry with a lot of things and seem to work that out at the Bowl. You know, there's no objective way to prove what he says; and it says nothing about how justified such feelings might be. But I think it does explain a certain odd combination of cold aloofness and short-tempered frustration that's in evidence not only at the Bowl but all over town (the frantic scene at the Bowl is played out every day in miniature at Monterey Market, in my neighborhood). I don't know whether it's the economic pressure people are under, disappointment with the way their world is turning out, or just a maelstrom of personal neuroses (including mine, naturally), but there's a pervasive joylessness on display here; on display amidst a fantastic level of affluence and both natural and created beauty.

[mary hodder]

Hi,
I really liked your story. I've lived in Berkeley for 17 years and the Bowl is one of the main reasons I moved here. Back then you couldn't get all that good stuff, in season with tons of variety, and organically, anywhere else. Even better, the reasonable prices. Now of course with organic farmer's mkts and Whole Foods everywhere, and the market demand for similar things that started in Berkeley, it's not so necessary to shop there.

That said, I've spent 17 years getting run over by other shoppers' carts and said "excuse me" to them, only to have the perpetrator sneer at me because I was pointing out how impolite they were being, and now they might possibly have to be civil and apologize.

Berkeley, way before the 7 years of this administration, has always been all about being impolite. Dressing badly has also been a symbol of the politically correct mood. Granted, over the past few years, people dress a lot better, but that too used to be something Berkeley did intentionally: dress badly. In fact because I dress well, my first 10 years here was often met on sight with derision, only to be met with someone saying to me, after I opened my mouth, " Wow, you're cool!" (in slightly surprised voice). Um.. what did they think? I dressed well and therefore was uncool? Same with the imposition people take with politeness. If you are nice, you are suspect. Never mind that social graces are the grease that make the wheels go round and you make a lot more friends with honey.

Berkeley is about being anti-establishment. Politeness is a symbol of manners, establishment, and so is dress. So in Berkeley, it's cool to disregard these kinds of things, actively work against them.

Berkeley is the most intolerant place I've ever lived, and the rudest. And I've lived in NYC and in rural Bush country where crosses were occasionally burned on front lawns. But I just sort of hang with the rudeness/intolerance because the lifestyle is nice, if difficult.

I still like it, and I love the Bowl. While I can get most of what's at the Bowl elsewhere now, I still go there once every week or so to pick up what I need. It's not that much different at the farmer's mkts or the Whole Foods in Berkeley anyway, and I like the Bowl because I've shopped there since High School and it's familiar and I enjoy it.

My BF says I have a dysfunctional relationship with it, because people are the way they are here, but I keep going.

That said, nice article and I hope you figure out a way to go there.. wear a clown nose or something, and pay by atm.

mary

[Unindicted Co-conspirator]

John, you need to come to Chicago & try Jerry's Fruit & grocery in Niles.
We always considered Jerry's to be a nuthouse. but it sounds like Jerry's is calm & collected compared to the Bowl.

[Bunting]

"Glad I live on the East Coast, that sounds insane."

It's not any better at the Park Slope Food Co-op, I can tell you right now.

[pixelsicle]

Oh my, this is so complicated. I guess when you get older you have to take the good with the bad. No one is a a saint, no matter how great the produce...to be successful you must sometimes behave like an ass. good and evil must co exist in a "real" world.

[Amusedby Berkeley]

Glenn has every right to ban anyone he wants -especially for 'unauthorized sampling'- however: "'Before you buy anything,' he says, 'you have to smell it, taste it.'" B-Bowl has great produce and poor produce (selection doesn't necessarily equate to quality) and just because Glenn tasted it a while ago doesn't mean it's still up to scratch.

It's almost a guarantee that great comments will be written in response to any article about Berkeley. So I read the comments and I wasn't disappointed: "hippie battle ground," "gourmands," "I'm not a [insert label here]," "[blah-blah] liberal [blah-blah]", "passion", "good and evil" ... Hilarious! It's so hard to get most Berkeleyans to laugh at themselves -even when they're grocery shopping- so you end up laughing at them.

I wonder what kind of organic, fair trade Kool Aid they've been selling at the Bowl...

[T.T. Nhu]

I have been shopping at Berkeley Bowl since its inception - 1976.
It is everything the author and many of the commentators say it is,
and more. One of my daughters was so obsessed by Berkeley Bowl
as a baby that she demanded to go there night and day. Out of town friends would ask to stop at Berkeley Bowl whenever I picked them up from the airport. They thought it was paradise. Glenn and Diane Yasuda are the patron saints of food (in addition to the Fujimoto family of Monterey Market.) The Bowl has stiff competition these days from the Farmer's markets which are held almost every day. We are terribly spoiled in Berkeley. Eat your heart out LA!

[a.]

i am originally from LA, and am now a berkeley resident and a berkeley bowl shopper. this article irritates me because it's just plain lazy journalism, built on exggerated hearsay and old stereotypes, as others have pointed out. it's just like articles written by bay-area-ites that stereotype LA, which i find i constantly have to defend while living up here in the bay area. ("you mean LA actually has a subway? NO WAY!! i bet nobody rides it though, right? they do, really? are you sure?" ugh....)

YES, the atmosphere in berkeley bowl is stressful. that's possibly because it's constantly packed with people. it is in fact like many other places that are packed with people are stressful. LAX before the holidays. grand central station at rush hour. etc. what john glionna has reported is exaggerated, and the truth buried within it is nothing new, or different from really anywhere else in this world.

(in fact i would argue that standing in line at asian airports, where definitions of personal space apparently allow fat old ladies to press their bodies against you, to be much more unbearable than the odd smelly hippie at the bowl. (yes, they're there, but actually, thankfully, there aren't that many.))

regarding the sampling: 1) every time i'm at berkeley bowl i see tons of people shoving food in their mouth as if they'd already purchased it - way more than i've ever seen at say, a safeway or anywhere else. possibly because it's so good?i guess. i find it rude (um, stealing anyone?) and disgusting, since those people are getting their hand on produce i might buy. ok let's not think about that too much. but anyway - sampling to choose a grape variety - of the 12 that are on offer - is one thing. grabbing a handful of cherries that you're not going to buy is another, and tons of the latter goes on, all the time.

but the thing that i've noticed, which makes me REALLY doubt glionna's sources, is that 2) nobody stops these people. i have NEVER, in my five years of shopping at the bowl, seen any of the many BB employees - who are always out and about on the store floor - stop anyone from doing this, let alone ban them. in fact i once was choosing between peaches, and an employee suggested a variety i wasn't considering - and when i said i wasn't sure, he offered me a sample. i'm not making that up, i swear.

so i have to doubt glionna's story for two reasons - one because i find the amount of sampling that goes on so gross that i wish the store WOULD stop people from doing it, and 2) because i've never seen them stop anyone, let alone ban people. !?

a story on the berkeley bowl, if it had addressed the union issues and the controversy surrounding the new store near I-80, would have been much more interesting, relevant to our times, and perhaps enlightening than this rehashed muck. i was embarrassed for the LA times that this even showed up as a column one article.

[jane maynard]

that is TOO funny.

doesn't glenn know any press is good press? your article completely intrigued me...and is one of the main reasons I'll be trekking 45 minutes tomorrow morning to check out berkeley bowl! and I will definitely NOT sample one thing without paying. in fact, I'm a tiny bit scared to go. ;)