Famous Berkeley Bowl supermarket profiled in LA Times

John Glionna of the LA Times writes about the Berkeley Bowl supermarket. It's famous for three things: its varied and high quality produce section, the oddball customers it attracts, and its one-strike-and-you're-out-for-life policy against people who sample without buying.

The produce emporium -- one of the nation's most renowned retailers of exotic fruits and vegetables -- creates its own bad behavior. Kamikaze shoppers crash down crowded aisles without eye contact or apology for fender-benders. So many customers weren't waiting to pay before digging in that management imposed the ultimate deterrent: Those caught sampling without buying will be banned for life -- no reprieves, no excuses. (Not even "I forgot to take my medication.")
Raphael Breines, who was ejected last year for eating on the premises, said he couldn't decide between two types of apricots, so he sampled both. Security stopped him in the parking lot.

"They treated me like a thief," said the 37-year-old park planner, who was photographed and required to sign a no-trespass agreement. "Technically I was stealing, but I wasn't trying to hide anything. I was just deciding which type of apricot to buy."

Breines, a longtime customer, sent an apology letter, asking to be reinstated. His request was denied.

At the Berkeley Bowl, the nuts are off the shelf

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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EH

I have a suggestion to those who are overrun by some lunkhead’s shopping cart, “What are you, a Republican? Pay attention!”
justONEguy

High-strung academics, professionals and foodies together in one place? *shudder*
splatocaster

I shop at the Bowl weekly, and I second what ROBR says – the produce guys will usually cut you a slice of whatever you want to try. I think you only get banned if you sample and don’t buy anything.

Haven’t ever sampled the sake straight outta the bottles, though. I’m gonna have to give that a try – they have an excellent sake selection.
vacasmagras

There’s something odd about the story of Breines getting banned. I shop at the Bowl several times a week and see people sampling produce or even things from the olive bar during nearly every trip. I’ve never seen anyone stopped or chased because of sampling.
ikegently

This article is a great example of a reporter exaggerating to make the story better.

1 – Sampling is pretty much encouraged at BB. As others have said, employees will cut fruit for you to try before you buy. Pretty much anything that is appropriate to taste is in fair play. I mean, it’s not like you can eat a whole apple or test a mango (but often there may be cut up slices to try), but that would be pretty unreasonable.

2 – While sometimes hectic, the scene there is far from that which is described. Often it is crowded, but what grocery store isn’t sometimes. People are sometimes rude, but no more than anywhere else.

In my opinion, this story is a piece of sensationalist yellow journalism.
consideredopinion

Thanks BB and LA Times for making an awesome but congested place even more oversubscribed by the curious & hungry.
Anonymous

This is 99% sensationalist bullpucky. I shopped there for 4 years in college, multiple times per week, and sampled from the store all the time with no repercussions. All the article gets right is the sheer volume of people they have to service. Whatever bitchiness you may come across at the market is due to the crowded aisles and long lines, not the wacky militant hippy caricature the author is determined to paint of Berkeley residents. Keep a Des Moinesian waiting for their food and I guarantee you would get the same level of crazy.
cmuwriter

I don’t know of anyplace that would let you sample stuff without permission. It seems to me that individuals who take samples without consent, and think they have the right to do so, are total douchebags. Stealing is stealing.
spamtastic

Okay, seriously, I was there yesterday. I was trying to decide which grapes to buy. They have like a dozen different kinds, so I probably ate like 10 grapes. Then I actually bought a pound of grapes. It was no problem.

Who walks into a store and eats apricots off the shelf (not on display–BB doesn’t usually have free samples of cut produce sitting around) and then leaves? That makes no sense. Am I reading this wrong? Is that what actually happened?
miss girl

#33: I’ve actually been a witness to pedestrians getting run down! *high five*. It was on Telegraph towards Durant, where Mrs. Fields is – HUGE SUV crashed into the students right in front of me. Luckily, no one looked seriously injured, just shaken.
Keith Talent

#7 – I get that the threat of shoplifting charges would be wielded as a club to force you to sign, but why would anyone succumb to that pressure? Would the cops respond to the charge that you ate an apricot? Would they be able to get a conviction? Wouldn’t anyone with a shred of common sense tell them to call the cops, and then walk away? Zero proof. .20 cents of merchandise and cops that would be righteously pissed at a retailer that routinely drag them in to prosecute apricot fans.
themindfantastic

No store is required to sell to anyone they don’t want to sell to. Granted if they had a racist/antisemetic policy people would protest and they could face serious difficulty, but ‘No Shirt/No Shoes/No Service’ for example is an acceptable discrimination policy… people sampling and not purchasing (ie taking food without contributing anything) is an acceptable discrimination policy. If they desire to keep such bans up for life, that is their perogative… it could be bad PR, but if the person samples something and doesn’t even buy an apple or anything no matter how small, they might as well declare everything is free and go out of business… if they ban people for life for doing that, they are protecting their assets, being a bit of a prick about it, but completely in the legal, moral, and ethical right to do so.
artbot

As a former east bay resident,we would occasionally shop at BB. While its customers may be educated, knowledgeable and informed, they are also the most selfish, rude, oblivious, out of touch pseudo-hipster treehuggers I’ve ever had the “pleasure” to shop with. Truly an unappealing lot.
Anonymous

While I’ve been known to sample bulk bin items or grapes.. small things, with the intention of figuring out what I want to buy, I can’t imagine picking up an apricot and thinking I can “sample” it without having to pay.

Yes, it’s harsh to ban someone from the store over that, or even to get the cops involved over something so small, but I do think he was wrong in the first place.
bshaurette

It’s also famous for never having enough parking. Which is fine – you couldn’t pay me to shop there. The attitude is just too much.
airshowfan

#19: .20 cents of merchandise…

Are you sure you don’t mean “20 cents”? There’s a difference, y’know.

Sorry, couldn’t resist ;)
MrsBug

Breines, a longtime customer, sent an apology letter, asking to be reinstated. His request was denied.

DANG! That’s hard-core. How ’bout banning them for a year and paying a fine of $X over the cost of the item??
chris farrell

I worked there for two weeks in 1988. Definitely a great place.
clueless in brooklyn

Good reason to steal someone’s identity, to get into a grocery store (!?)
mdh

Would that count at disembowelment by zealous mods?

No Soup For You!
Keith Talent

“Raphael Breines, who was ejected last year for eating on the premises, said he couldn’t decide between two types of apricots, so he sampled both. Security stopped him in the parking lot.

“They treated me like a thief,” said the 37-year-old park planner, who was photographed and required to sign a no-trespass agreement.”

WTF? What kind of person accompanies the security back into the store and volunteers to sign a no trespass agreement? When you are approached in the parking lot, is the correct response not “piss off”? What a weird anecdote.
amybeanz

I shop here all the time because the selection is amazing for produce, and decent for most other things. Yeah, the parking is a hassle. They are building a new BB behind the OSH on Ashby.

One time I saw a woman pick up a container of raspberries, open it and feed about 6 or 7 of the berries to her little kid in the cart. Then she closed it, put it back and picked a different container to put in her cart. As she pulled away, I found myself yelling: I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE YOU JUST DID THAT!!

Everyone stared at her as she slunk away. It was really weird. I have never seen anyone reprimanded for sampling, and it must cost them plenty.
zirkus

You’ll never find a more wretched hive of self entitled douches.
RobR

I shop here every week and I sample. Not only has no one ever bothered me, but the stock people have offered to cut fruit for me. Berkeley Bowl does indeed have a huge variety of everything, but not all apricots are created equal. In fact, due to the tendency for fruit to get picked and shipped before it’s ripe, six varieties of some item may only mean you get six choices of something tasteless.

Sampling is a necessity here.
Mark Levitt

#5: I’m guessing it was presented as “Sign the agreement, or we press shoplifting charges against you.”
Talia

Why the hell would anyone think biting produce and then not paying for it is acceptable behavior?

Its not like they can still sell it after you’ve had your bite. You might as well just have walked out of the store with it. Its theft. Plain and simple.

I can particularly see them being harsh about it if it had gotten to be a significant problem. The fruit is there to be sold, not to be snacked upon and discarded by people wandering around.

I can’t fathom people justifying this somehow. I would never in a million years dream of doing such a thing.
WeightedCompanionCube

I can understand booting people who outright gorge without buying, but no sampling? A lot of places provide free samples and encourage you to try them. It usually makes the sale.

They forbid sampling, but outright permit the behavior of the more, shall we say, idiosyncratic clientele? Of course! It contributes to the circus! Tho I bet it sucks if you get rammed in the parking lot by some nutjob because you got the last melon.

This is the “soup nazi” school of making something forbidden or obtuse to increase its popularity. If you can’t even sample it, it MUST be supreme, right?

The owners of that store is are a couple of conceited asses, plain and simple.
Chrs

The management is fine. The customer base is composed of… well, everyone else has described it pretty well.

Except that they keep to themselves, bar squeezing by you, and the place has an excellent selection of produce etc. It’s well worth it.
Takuan

remember the squeezy-woman in Tampopo?
cinemajay

The biggest irony about their banned-for-sampling policy seems to reach its climax here, FTA:

Yasuda, whose father and grandfather were Los Angeles produce farmers, wants to handle the merchandise. “Before you buy anything,” he says, “you have to smell it, taste it.”

So they sample when THEY shop for the store–but shoppers cannot do likewise. Interesting.

I don’t doubt the neccessity at all, but to admit as much (under the circumstances) seems to be inviting disaster.
DarkFlounder

About two minutes before seeing this article, I was notified that one of my company’s products has been picked up by the Berkeley Bowl.

http://www.BurntSacrifice.com

My business partner is an orthodox priest. I am SO showing up to see that demo.
Anonymous

Further along in the article:

“Yasuda, whose father and grandfather were Los Angeles produce farmers, wants to handle the merchandise. “Before you buy anything,” he says, “you have to smell it, taste it.”

Umm … I live a few block from the Bowl and I don’t taste test the goods, but even the owner knows that taste testing is a good idea sometimes. Maybe the manager and the owner need to get closer to being on the same page.

As for the crowded aisles and talk of pushing and trouble … bull spit. The aisles are not as wide as, say, Safeway’s, but all this means is sometimes you have a wait 5 seconds longer for someone to scoot out of the way. And if they don’t because they’re trying to decide between 15 different brands and textures of tofu, then it’s always enough to simply ask them to move politely.

This is a crowded aisle, not an LA freeway at rush hour.

And speaking of rush hours, if you really are upset by the crowded aisles, just go there before 4:30pm or after 7:00pm (careful, they do close earlier than you hope). Can’t get there at other times? Just deal with the extra 2-5 minutes of waiting … it’s really not that bad.

What’s bad are the prices on some of their packaged foods … expensive place for ice cream, frozen meals/foods, chips, etc. Also, apparently not great to many (but not all) employees. But unique for produce quality and variety.
mdh

remember the squeezy-woman in Tampopo?

I had forgotten. Now that’s a good contrived movie.
Aloisius

Berkeley is a city of reckless pedestrians. I’m convinced they simply do not understand the physics of cars hitting people.

I consistently drive 5 to 10 mph under the speed limit because the people there intentionally look the wrong way when crossing the street and when they get halfway, they look the other way. I’ve had people wearing all black in the middle of the night pop out between two parked cars and jaywalk right in front of my car. It scares the living daylights out of me.

Now imagine all those people in a grocery store behind carts.

And yet, I keep going back. Berkeley Bowl has a fantastic produce selection. Granted, the farmer’s markets are still better, but you can’t often find 5 types of pineapple at the farmer’s market.
Secret_Life_of_Plants

I have shopped at the Berkeley Bowl for 6 years now and this is the first I have heard of the one-strike rule.

I have sampled things and never had a problem.

Of course I also buy a ton of things so maybe that is only a rule for people who use the produce section as a person free all-you-can-eat-buffet.
ecobore

Hmm, it’s only stealing if you leave the premises without paying for what you have bought or consumed. I suspect that this rule is unenforceable if people PAY for what they’ve sampled. If they tried to stop you touching and smelling the fruit and veg here in France they would close down in a week!!!
Lauren O

Berkeley is a city of reckless pedestrians. I’m convinced they simply do not understand the physics of cars hitting people.

Number of pedestrians I have almost hit in Berkeley: 20935

Number of pedestrians I have actually hit in Berkeley: 1 (it’s not as bad as it sounds)

Anyway, I had not heard of this no-sampling policy. I thought Berkeley Bowl was just famous for their amazing produce.