-
1 week ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton
Berkeley Free Clinic, the volunteer-run health center founded by street medics caring for people injured during the 1969 battles over People’s Park, is moving from the basement of Trinity United Methodist Church — its home for nearly its entire history.
-
1 week ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton |Zac Farber
Two West Berkeley cycling businesses, each with a decade or more in the city, closed nearly simultaneously earlier this year — the consequence, they say, of a contraction of the cycling industry after a surge in sales during the pandemic. Berkeley Cycle Works, located on San Pablo Avenue, near Cedar Street, and Wrench Science, a custom bike building shop near San Pablo and Ashby, both closed in February, citing the headwinds facing the industry.
-
1 month ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton |Zac Farber
The Claremont, the 276-room luxury hotel at the foot of the Berkeley Hills, has changed hands for at least the 10th time in its 110-year-history — and the fifth since 2007. After a decade of operation under the Fairmont flag, management of the property passed to HEI Hotels + Resorts in February, two years after the hotel was sold to Ohana Real Estate Investors by the estate of Richard Blum, the husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The hotel’s official name has changed to the Claremont Resort & Club.
-
1 month ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton |Zac Farber
Find out which stores have opened, closed or moved and what’s new in Berkeley’s nonprofit, retail and small-business communities. If you have updates to share, send an email to [email protected]. Closed ElmwoodAfter eight years selling artisan-made goods, including clothing, jewelry, handbags and kitchenware, Palm + Perkins closed its College Avenue shop on March 21.
-
1 month ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton |Zac Farber
A new neighborhood grocery store has popped up on the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Cedar Street, across from Acme Bread, in a space formerly occupied by Animal Farm Discount Pet Foods. Green Leaf Grocery Market sells a variety of canned and packaged foods, with an emphasis on organic goods, according to owner Moheeb Eltareb. Eltareb grew up working in his parent’s liquor store in Merced, but he has a very different vision for Green Leaf. “I’m not a big fan of liquor stores,” he said.
-
1 month ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton |Zac Farber
Creative Growth Art Center, the 50-year-old Oakland-based studio and gallery for artists with intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD), is opening its first satellite space on the ground floor of The Grinnell, a new affordable housing apartment building on San Pablo Avenue for families and people with disabilities. “We’re excited about our new space and the possibilities it holds for Creative Growth and our community,” said Ibby Sasso, the nonprofit’s marketing director.
-
2 months ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton |Zac Farber
After 11 years in Berkeley and five years at its current location in the Gilman District, Laurel Burch Studios is closing its flagship store on the corner of Eighth and Camelia streets because the building is being sold.
-
2 months ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton |Zac Farber
Find out which stores have opened, closed or moved and what’s new in Berkeley’s nonprofit, retail and small-business communities. If you have updates to share, send an email to [email protected]. Moved Telegraph AvenueThe Ink Stone, the printing and art supply store that caters to architects, engineers, and students, has moved from its former location on Telegraph Avenue to Durant Avenue, just a few blocks away.
-
2 months ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton |Zac Farber
In the mid-2000s — when the Iraq War was raging, when documentaries like Who Killed the Electric Car? and An Inconvenient Truth were being filmed, when bicyclists boasted they were making a “quiet statement against oil wars” — five women opened a small shop in West Berkeley selling biodiesel, a fuel made from recycled vegetable oil. The women later moved the shop, which they called BioFuel Oasis, into a former gas station in South Berkeley, at the busy corner of Ashby Avenue and Sacramento Street.
-
2 months ago | 
berkeleyside.org | Nathan Dalton |Zac Farber
Forty tons. That’s the amount of clothes the team at ThriftyCat sorted through to set up their new thrift shop on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in downtown Berkeley. Forty tons is an amount that would have been daunting to most, but to shop owner, Bryce Kalousek-Maritano, it’s just another day at work. Kalousek-Maritano also owns Curiosity Shop, home of “100,000 things you don’t need,” just a few blocks down from ThriftyCat on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and is a consummate collector.
