East Bay Bus Tour
Normally we explore the Bay Area and beyond in our own vehicle. But today, we’re going to do something a little bit different. We’re going to discover some terrific spots in the East Bay. We’re going to leave the Berkeley Marina and the Xterra behind and we’re going to go on a bus.
Ronda Robinson has been a driver with AC Transit for over 10 years. Today she’s taking us to some of her favorite East Bay spots that are easily accessible by bus and that she has discovered from her driver’s seat.
“Looking out this window is like looking out a big picture frame,” Ronda says of her view. But it’s not just what she sees that catches her attention.
Sometimes, it’s what she smells…
“Ooh, you smell that? You smell how good that food smells down here?”
Ronda asks when we arrive at our first stop in Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto, or what she prefers to call, “the melting pot of all gumbo foods.”
“When you come down here at 6 o’clock in the morning the smells just wake you up, better than coffee,” Ronda says.
While driving her route along Shattuck Avenue, Ronda noticed a crowd that gathered in front of one shop every day.
“The line goes down the street, around the corner and across the street on the median.” Ronda says. “They sit in the middle of the street and eat this pizza so I just had to have a piece.”
A passenger told her that the pizza was from the Cheeseboard Collective - a popular cheese shop, bakery, and pizza place that is all worker-owned and operated.
Erin Crowe has been a member of the collective for almost 20 years, and jokes that she’s raised her family on bread and cheese. She gives us a tour and a taste.
“These are sourdough baguettes being rolled out.” Erin says, showing us some long cylinders of dough. “They’ll be baked a little bit later today.”
Giving us a taste of the freshly baked bread, she says, “This is the Greek Shepherd’s roll. This is yummy, delicious. Isn’t that good?”
“Is that onion?” Ronda asks. “Oh, I love onion.”
“Isn’t that delicious? You never are hungry working here,” Erin assures us.
Before we leave, Erin surprises Ronda with one of her favorite treats. “This is our double chocolate cookie,” she says.
“If I had known they had double chocolate cookies in here, I might have stopped the bus,” Ronda replies.
It’s hard to stop our grazing and go, but it’s time to get on the bus and head to our next destination along Telegraph Avenue.
Ronda says that some of her best food tips come from her passengers.
“They get on and tell you where to try food at,” she tells me. “If nothing else, those are your food connoisseurs.”
She discovered our next stop, just by following her nose.
“You smell these foods in this area also in the morning and you know that it’s not Jack in the Box. It’s better than perfumes,” she says.
The enticing aromas come from the Ethiopian spice shops and restaurants that dot Telegraph Avenue between 40th and 60th streets. Fetlework Tefferi shows us how she makes injera – a flatbread made from teff flour at her Ethiopian food store, Brundo.
“There is no fat, no egg. This is traditional.” Fetlework explains.
She says that when she first arrived in the US, she had a little help in adjusting to the food. Fetlework says she had to have one thing: “Spices. You have to have spices. Every immigrant that comes from Ethiopia brings spices.”
Fetlework decided to share her spices with the growing Ethiopian community in the Bay Area. She opened Café Colucci, which features Ethiopian coffees, and soon expanded to offer other traditional fare.
“Food is very essential. Food is family. There everybody eats food together - it is a communal thing. We don’t get separate plates. Everybody sits and shares,” she explains.
Ronda and I share a platter filled with various dishes including collard greens and lentils.
Ronda puts it best. “What better way to make a friend than over food?”
Back on the bus, we head south. Ronda says she enjoys driving this route toward Alameda and watching incoming and departing planes to the Oakland airport.
“The airplanes just going up and down…just wondering where they’re going and where they’re coming from,” she says.
Just a short walk from the bus stop, we’re able to see planes of another scale.
“This little field - I thought it was a fishing hole,” Ronda says. “I thought you guys were coming in here fishing.”
Duane Roach and his friends are actually engaging in a high-flying hobby.
Every weekend, they gather at the Bill Osborne Model Airplane Field to fly control line planes. Designated as a model plane field in the 1950’s, it’s one of the oldest in the country.
Duane explains how these model planes work: “You pull one way and the elevator goes up, you pull the other way and the elevator goes down. And that’s basically how all these airplanes fly.”
After some instruction, Ronda and I get the chance to try our hands at piloting with what they assure us is a crash-proof disc. Next, they allow me to try my hand with a model plane. But my promising flight doesn’t have a model landing.
I give up my pilot’s seat and take my place as a passenger again. A short ride later, we arrive at St. George Spirits, a distillery in an old airplane hangar. Lou Bustamante, the Tasting Room manager, shows us what they have brewing.
"Right now there’s a charge in here of brandy that’s a combination of red and white grapes,” Lou explains.
He gives us a tour of the distillery which the public can visit on weekends.
They make everything from brandies to vodkas. Their latest creation, absinthe, had been banned in the US for almost a century.
“We became the first distillery in the US to produce, legally, absinthe since the ban in 1912,” explains Lou.
Once the drink of choice for 19th century artists and writers, it was thought to cause hallucinations.
Lou says, “They attributed that to the reason why Van Gogh cut off his ear.”
At their tasting bar, Lou pours me two samples. The first, he cautions me not to drink. This one, I would only smell, only because it is 60% alcohol. It smells like licorice. The second glass he has prepared for tasting.
“You want to add ice water to it,” Lou explains. “Get it nice and cloudy.”
I’m able to enjoy this drink that has such mystique, thanks to my designated driver for the day. I had a wonderful time riding around with Ronda and got to see some great spots that are all accessible by bus.
For more information about the places we visited:
Cheeseboard Collective
1504 and 1512 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA
(510) 549-3183
www.cheeseboardcollective.coop
Café Colucci
6427 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 601-7999
www.cafecolucci.com
Open 7 days a week
Bill Osborne Model Airplane Field
Located on Dolittle Drive and Harbour Bay Parkway (near the old Oakland Airport)
http://aeromaniacs.com/
St. George Spirits
2601 Monarch Street
Alameda, CA 94501
(510) 769-1601
www.stgeorgespirits.com
AC Transit
www.actransit.org
BKR7274