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We Finally Know When Italian Food Superstore Eataly Will Open in Silicon Valley

Plus, a Bitcoin pizza day with Bay Area hip hop artists and more food news

Cheese is displayed at Eataly NYC Downtown in New York, the United States, on March 10, 2022.
Cheese is displayed at Eataly NYC Downtown in New York, the United States, on March 10, 2022.
Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua via Getty Images

After keeping fans in high anticipation of the news, representatives for Italian superstore Eataly have finally announced to the Bay Area that they’ll open their doors on Thursday, June 16, at 5 p.m. at the Westfield Valley Fair in Santa Clara. The Mercury News reports the 45,000-square-foot, three-floor marketplace and restaurant center is the ninth location for the Turin, Italy-founded business.

The Eataly opening has been teased for a long time, arriving after years of delays and construction, and after the company navigated a potentially ruinous relationship with Mario Batali. “We’re excited. The team has been hard at work for this project to come to life,” Raffaele Piarulli, the chief operating officer of Eataly North America, told the Mercury Monday. Piarulli says that more details will become available in the remaining weeks before the big day.

Castro corner cafe to reopen by the end of the year

Cafe Flora, on the corner of Market and Noe streets, will finally reopen after more than two years shuttered. The Chronicle reports that Serhat Zorlu, a former Cafe Flora customer, has taken over the lease. It’s still unclear if Zorlu will reopen the business as Cafe Flora, debut a new cafe, or if any menu changes should be expected.

Arsonist arrested in Vallejo for torching specialty shop

An arsonist was arrested after torching Anchor Pantry in Vallejo late on May 16. On Instagram, owner Jessica Brooks wrote that “Anchor Pantry 2.0 [is] coming ASAP.”

Sacramento County restaurant rebrands once again citing copyright claim

A restaurant in Carmichael is beginning to earn artist status as it enters its “the restaurant formerly known as” phase. The Sacramento Bee reports that Alexandru Sirbu, the owner of the Firebird Russian Restaurant, dropped the “Russian” portion of the business’ name in March after the invasion of the Ukraine began, but now has received a letter from a North Carolina restaurant called the Firebird warning of copyright issues. Sirbu says the restaurant will now go as “Noroc,” which means luck in Romanian.

Bay Area hip hop artists to celebrate pizza and Bitcoin, naturally.

Bitcoin, which is currently trading at 50 percent below its all time high, could use a break. Thankfully May 22 is Bitcoin Pizza Day, a riff on the legendary story of the cryptocurrency’s first retail transaction wherein a customer bought two pizzas with 10,000 BTC (an estimated $296,000,000 worth of pizza today). In honor of that tale, San Francisco pizzeria Sunset Squares Pizza is throwing a free pizza party at Temple Nightclub from 4 to 9 p.m. with attendees like Domino from Oakland’s Hieroglyphics and a “secret Bay Area special guest.”

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