Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto? Even Alice Waters hates name
Should Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto abandon its decadesold moniker?
That’s the goal of Nick Cho and Trish Rothgeb, who recently opened Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters in the neighborhood. Their fledgling movement received a big push from Chez Panisse owner Alice Waters, who supports changing the name of the Gourmet Ghetto.
“I have never liked it from the very beginning, either word,” Waters told The Chronicle, adding she’s “so ashamed” she hadn’t said anything about changing the name before now. The chef opened her restaurant in 1971 and pioneered California cuisine and the Slow Food movement in the neighborhood that also boasted the original Peet’s Coffee and the Cheese Board Collective.
Waters — whom The Chronicle once called “the doyenne of the Gourmet Ghetto” — said she doesn’t like the term “gourmet,” because it suggests some level of sophistication required to know about food, and “ghetto” because of historical conno
tations.
“We are not a ghetto, we don’t want to be a ghetto,” she said. “We consider ourselves very open to ideas, and I think the idea of the ghetto has just been of course destroyed by World War II and there is no way to make ‘ghetto’ not really offputting.”
A Gourmet Ghetto name change entered public debate when Cho and Rothgeb opened their latest coffee shop in the neighborhood and pushed to change the name. Some longtime residents and food writers revolted against the newcomers’ idea, most notably on the online news site Berkeleyside. Waters doesn’t know where the name came from; it is apocryphally attributed to former Chronicle columnists Herb Caen and Alice Kahn, though even that credit is in dispute. And she doesn’t have any ideas for a new one. She said she doesn’t even like neighborhood names.
“It feels exclusive somehow rather than open,” she said, adding she always thought of the area as just “friends who cared about food.”
Cho said he was relieved to hear of Waters’ support.
“We feel like that’s it, it’s done,” he said. “There’s no one else in the area who has the power to say something like that. The people on the other side of it don’t have anything to say. She’s the queen of the Gourmet Ghetto, or whatever it’s going to be.”
Other local business owners are also speaking up about the controversy.
“In cases with the original ghettos, those people were told you can only live here and not anywhere else,” said Wendy Brucker, the chefowner of 25yearold Rivoli on Solano Avenue. “So, to have this bougie white place called a ghetto always seemed to me, from a historical standpoint, unbelievably disrespectful to people who have been forced to live in the ghettos.”
Brucker, who has lived in Berkeley her whole life, said she, too, supports ditching the Gourmet Ghetto moniker. “Holding on to the name is like holding on to the Confederate flag. It’s just not appropriate anymore.”
Charles Farrier, the owner of Crumble & Whisk Bakery in nearby Emeryville, also said the name should be changed. “People have to get used to change, but the public out here really doesn’t take too well to it, especially when it deals with something that has been around for years,” he said.
Still others supported a change, though they were less adamant.
“Sure, this was the birthplace of California cuisine, but I didn’t find it offensive as much as I found it presumptuous,” said Karen Adelman, coowner of Saul’s Restaurant. “A part of me feels like running away from this topic. It’s a nowin conversation. But it is a situation where you should have to listen closely to the people who have an issue with the name. That's important.”
But not all business owners felt that a change is needed.
“If you ask me, I think it’s kind of hip. It’s kind of edgy, it takes the best of both words,” said Anthony Lucas, the owner of Anthony’s Cookies, who recently opened a Berkeley outpost. “When you hear ghetto, you think of one thing and then you hear gourmet and it has you thinking in a completely different way. It’s kind of timeless.”
Both Waters and Cho assumed the city of Berkeley was responsible for posted signs identifying the area, but said they found out it was the doing of the North Shattuck Association, which runs the gourmetghetto.org website. Cho sent a letter to the association asking for a name change. It responded saying that the issue had been raised earlier, but nothing was done about it, and invited him to speak at a Thursday meeting on the subject.
According to Heather Hensley, executive director of the North Shattuck Association, the board is aware of the request to drop the name from the organization’s website and marketing — and that they “welcome a discussion.”
“We will get feedback from the merchants and residents over the next few weeks to get their opinions on use of the moniker, and any suggestions for a new tagline for our marketing efforts,” Hensley wrote in an email to The Chronicle. “Unfortunately, even if we drop the moniker, it may still be used popularly beyond our control.”
Hensley added that the banners bearing the moniker are now 5 years old, and, since they “are at the end of their useful life,” will be replaced with holiday banners in the coming weeks.
For Cho, the push for the name change is part of his vision of using his business to promote diversity and inclusion. Around 90% of his staff in the Berkeley location are nonwhite, he said.
“We’re not trying to cause problems,” Cho said. “We really hate the idea that this is disrespecting any tradition that we people hold dear.” But, he added, “sometimes you have to let things go.”
While he recognizes the investment people have made in the name, Cho thinks social media will help to spread the word if area merchants decide to change it.
And Waters thinks you don’t need to advertise.
“People will come regardless,” she said.