NorCal Beer Company Mocks PG&E For Days-Long Power Outages

Barrel Brothers Brewing Co. launched a PG&E themed beer called “Mandatory Blackout”

Sunset reports that Barrel Brothers Brewing Co., a beer company based in fire-ravaged Sonoma County, just dropped a beer called “Mandatory Blackout,” that comes in a can designed to satirize the logo of alleged fire-causer PG&E. According to the beer’s marketing materials, it’s 9 percent ABV is balanced by classic noble hops, “making this go-to beer go down easy, like your power in a red flag warning.” This isn’t the first beer company to take on the power company, as Santa Rosa’s Shady Oak Barrel House offered a far more profane commentary last month with a classic California pale ale called Fuck PG&E.

Hayward won one, lost one

The restaurant gods gave the birthplace of Salt & Straw investor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson one boon, but took another away: On the plus side, the East Bay Times reports that a 24-hour Dunkin’ Donuts has opened at 268 Jackson Street, a spot near the non-24-hour Hayward DMV. Meanwhile, the Hayward Ranch, which has been in operation since 1948 and is the last remaining location of the East Bay’s Ranch restaurant chain will close at the end of the year, as the property owner reportedly wants to redevelop the site. A lot of business went through this place,” patron Jack Del Rio (the father of the former Raiders coach of the same name) told the Times.

Mission Local is all about baccalà

This week’s “Fresh,” Mission Local’s food column from local cooking instructor Viola Buitoni, urges readers to add baccalà — a salt-reserved cod popular in Italy — to their holiday menus. Norwegian salt cod is preferred by chefs, she says, but it’s also harder to find. The Canadian variety is apparently easy to score in SF at spots like Casa Guadalupe and the Spanish Table.

The owner of five Pier 39 restaurants says that foot traffic is terrible

ABC 7 reports that businesses at tourist hotspot Pier 39 are struggling to survive, with one retailer saying that they broke revenue records in 2016 and 2017, but things have dropped ever since. Sandra Fletcher, the president of Simco Restaurants — which owns five venues inside the destination — says that they’ve even had to “have an outside sales marketing person to book tour groups to come in and fill up the restaurants because we just don’t have the walk-in business anymore.”

A dish at Red’s House transported a Chron scribe to his childhood

SF Chronicle food writer Justin Phillips says that the oxtails served at Jamaican-inspired pop-up Red’s House ”danced on the back of my tongue, just as they did back in Mississippi.” “We serve the oxtails by themselves because they’re just that good. It’s a big portion, but people have been loving it,” its owner says of the traditional soul food offering, which can be found at Breaking Bread (4 Embarcadero, Street Level) for dinner on Wednesdays–Sundays and brunch every weekend.