Ultra Popular Marugame Udon Sets Opening Date for Berkeley

The udon line starts here

Marugame Udon, whose chewy noodles and crunchy tempura have drawn long lines to SF’s Stonestown Galleria since last year, will soon have Cal students queuing up, too. A second Bay Area location of the growing Japanese chain opens on the ground floor of UC Berkeley’s Berkeley Way West Building on September 24 (with dinner only to start). Don’t worry, townies: The space is open to the public.

Huge fight brewing over Uber and Doordash drivers in California

Yesterday, California legislators passed a potentially game-changing bill that could help workers currently classified as independent contractors at companies like Uber and Doordash be reclassified as employees, entitling them to minimum wage and more benefits. The bill has yet to be signed into law by Governor Newsom, but he’s expressed support. The hitch: Uber says it won’t need to make changes to its company since its drivers aren’t central to its business. Let that sink in. “Uber’s business... is serving as a technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces,” lawyers for the company tell the New York Times.

Yelp adds updates to waitlist feature

Yelp’s growing waitlist feature, in which customers can remotely join an online waitlist for a restaurant, is adding some new tools to know about. First, they’re finally getting predictive wait times — rather than merely showing customers their place in line and offering a restaurant’s estimate, the new wait times are based on data from past customers. And there’s also now a reminder customers can set to join the waitlist based on the time they want to sit down.

Harvest Urban Market owners are fed up

SoMa grocery and deli owner Gill Desaulniers of Harvest Urban Market on 8th and Howard is calling out the neighborhood, which he tells ABC7 has changed drastically and for the worse over his last 16 years in business. Gill is dealing with people doing drugs in the bathroom while his sister and co-owner, Marian, says she’s been attacked at the register. “We’re not even running our business anymore,” says Gill. “We’re basically dealing with street people.”