No One Knows When California’s Restaurant Workers Can Get the COVID-19 Vaccine

Welcome to p.m. Intel, your bite-sized roundup of Bay Area food and restaurant news. Tips are always welcome, drop them here.

• Today is vaccination day in San Francisco. 2,000 doses of Pfizer‘s FDA-approved vaccination arrived at San Francisco General Hospital Monday, and starting at 9:30 Tuesday, the hospital’s most critical workers lined up to get their shots, KRON 4 reports. In a press conference Tuesday morning, CA Gov, Gavin Newsom laid out the tier levels for what he called “Phase 1a” recipients of the vaccine: hospital workers, paramedics, nursing home workers, and dialysis center employees. Who gets the vaccine after all our healthcare workers are covered is up to a group of medical experts assembled in October to determine vaccination priorities. Though Newsom mentioned grocery store and other frontline workers in today’s address, he didn’t offer any insight into where servers, who (where sit-down dining is allowed) deal with scores of unmasked people a day, might fall into the list of vaccination targets. In a joint press release, the health officers for Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma county as well as the City of Berkeley said that they “support the state’s vaccine distribution guidelines,” and say that their “jurisdiction will use that roadmap to implement the distribution of vaccines in this first phase, which may take several months as supplies increase. Vaccines for the general public may be available by early summer.”
• Chez Panisse pastry cook Sara Eisen has launched a baked goods hustle called Sadie’s Babkas. [Berkeleyside]
• Manny Yekutiel, the owner of Mission District cafe Manny’s, is one step closer to joining the governing body of the SFMTA, San Francisco’s transit and traffic agency. [SF Chronicle]
• The art and antique collection of late Bay Area culinary icon Cecilia Chiang goes up for auction Wednesday, and, wow, is it beautiful. [Architectural Digest]
• Chef and author Monifa Dayo, who left Oakland for Senegal earlier this year, is preparing for a Christmas in Dakar. [KQED]
• Charles Farriér, the founder of Emeryville’s Crumble & Whisk Patisserie, grew up in the Oakland foster system, where he was “always interested in cooking and inspired by watching my mother cook — but she never allowed me to cook.” [East Bay Times]