McMuffin-Eating Protesters Plan to ‘Swarm’ Pleasant Hill BART Station

McMuffin-eating protesters will reportedly take over BART on Saturday

Local activists continue to be roiled by last week’s detention of Steve Foster, who was handcuffed by BART police after eating a sandwich on the platform of Pleasant Hill station. Now a protest entitled “Eat a McMuffin on BART: They Can’t Stop Us All” has been proposed for Saturday, November 16, between 1-3, at the same BART stop where Foster was cited. “We’ve all seen the video of the man getting harassed and detained for eating a McMuffin at the Pleasant Hill BART Station,” the Facebook event’s description reads. “Let’s swarm the station eating McMuffins, they can’t stop us all.” As of publication time, 555 people had said they would attend, and over 1700 declared that they were “interested.”

Fat Slice Pizza has closed

UC Berkeley-adjacent institution Fat Slice Pizza announced via its website that “after 34 years in business, we are closing our doors permanently.” The news comes after two liquor license suspensions for serving booze to minors and eight months without a profit. Manager Chris Pisarra tells Berkeleyside, “we’re done,” meaning that he and Gail Giffen, Fat Slice’s founder, will be leaving the food industry for good.

Boba Guys’ Mission location has been broken into three times (so far) this year

In a post to Instagram published Tuesday, Boba Guys owner Andrew Chau said that its 3491 19th Street location’s window was bashed in, the third such crime to befall the business in 2019. Chau wrote “We will likely put up metal gates which we know landlords and residents don’t like. It is what it is. I’ve proposed radical ideas like CCTV that drive up accountability in this city, but we will see where that goes. We know there’s sensitivity around cashless stores— looks good right now.” (It should be noted that stores that only allow credit cards were outlawed in the city last May.) Chau also made multiple references to San Francisco as “Gotham,” perhaps a nod to recent suggestions on social media that the time is ripe for a local billionaire to take on the mantle of Batman. Confidential to Chau and others considering taking matters into one’s own hands: Before doing so, check out the 2011 film Super. It’s a excellent reminder that comic books are not documentaries.

The future of local dairy brand Berkeley Farms is in jeopardy

Dean Foods, which the Associated Press reports is the country’s largest milk processor, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday. “Despite our best efforts to make our business more agile and cost-efficient, we continue to be impacted by a challenging operating environment marked by continuing declines in consumer milk consumption,” its CEO said. Since 1998, Dean has also owned Berkeley Farms, a Hayward-based milk producer that, per The East Bay Times, churns out over 135,000 gallons of milk a day. It’s also known for a long-running radio ad originally voiced by Mel “Bugs Bunny” Blanc, in which a human asks “Farms in Berkeley?” and a “cow” replies “Mooooooooooo.”

A Middle Eastern restaurant called Yasmin will open in the former Ali Baba’s Cave space

After 36 years in business, Ali Baba’s Cave closed its 799 Valencia Street spot this past June. Mission Local reports that another Middle Eastern restaurant will open in the space, this one called Yasmin. It’ll be the city’s second restaurant from Mohammad Eltawil, who also owns Lower Haight spot Palmyra. Yasmin is expected to open “within a week or two,” after a lightning round of renovations.