Berkeley cafe accused of bias gets fresh start
Elmwood Cafe, the Berkeley coffee shop that closed last month amid national conversations about racial bias, reopened Thursday morning with a new name and new owners.
The cafe is now called Baker & Commons. Former Elmwood manager Kara Hammond, who had worked for the business since it opened in 2010, currently co- owns the shop with Eric Wright.
On Thursday morning, roughly 30 minutes after the cafe opened at 7, the lobby was slowly beginning to fill with customers. A small family was clustered in the back of the coffee shop while a few other patrons sat quietly at tables near the front counter either reading or working on laptops.
“We’ve had the regulars who showed up as soon as we opened this morning,” said Hammond, who for most of the morning greeted each customer personally, took orders and answered
questions about the business change. “I couldn’t sleep much last night because I was just ready to get started,” she added.
Aesthetically, the new coffee shop is essentially identical to the Elmwood space, with the same furniture and colors. Even the menu rings familiar with the same biscuits, scones and assorted pastries that were offered before. Hammond said the coffee options have expanded.
As for the name, Hammond said it’s a reference to the fact that her business is going to be a revitalized community gathering spot for the neighborhood.
Elmwood Cafe closed on April 20, days after it was pushed back into the national spotlight. In 2015, the cafe was the scene of an incident involving African American comedian and Bay Area native W. Kamau Bell. While standing outside of the shop and speaking to a group of white women, one of whom was his wife, Bell said he was told to “scram” by an employee who assumed he was bothering the group. Bell’s experience made national headlines after he detailed the incident in his blog.
Bell wrote about the incident again on a CNN blog earlier this year after the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks in mid- April. The men were waiting for an associate to arrive when an employee called the police on them. A video of the incident on Twitter was viewed millions of times in the days that followed.
In 2015, Bell said Elmwood’s then- owner, Michael Pearce, promised to train his employees on racial bias. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson vowed to take similar actions in 2018.
“In the middle of the heat you say, ‘ No, we’re going to change everything.’ When the pressure goes down, you go back to business as usual,” Bell told the Chronicle last month. “The Elmwood Cafe definitely went back to business as usual.”
At the new Baker & Commons, Hammond said she hired most of the Elmwood Cafe staff. New employees are being educated about racial bias, which she said is a continuation of a practice she began a few years ago at the former cafe.
Kathy Abrams, a law professor at UC Berkeley, was one of the first customers at the business Thursday morning. An empty glass of yogurt rested next to her laptop. Abrams, who normally orders wheat toast, has been a regular at the business for the last few years. She said she was disturbed by the 2015 incidents for several reasons.
“I was surprised by it, but I was also not surprised by it. I was more concerned by how poorly it was handled by the owner at the time,” she said. “Those types of incidents just happen far too often these days. But I’m glad to see they’re making a fresh start here, and the bias training they’re doing is a great thing. I think really good outreach would be to get in touch with Kamau Bell and speak to him, tell him to come here.”
Pearce, the former Elmwood Cafe owner, acknowledged last month that the business had failed in its efforts to rectify the 2015 incident, and said that it might return as a worker- owned cooperative. Hammond declined to provide details on how the ownership change occurred. She said she did not want to make connections to the past business that once called 2900 College Ave. home. Instead, she said her goal is to focus on Baker & Commons’ future.
“We want this place to continue to be an essential part of this community, of this neighborhood,” Hammond said. “It starts today and it starts with us making sure people know this space is a welcoming space for all.”