I almost hugged a stranger in a grocery store parking lot this weekend. Seriously. Let me backup: There’s a legendary grocery store in Berkeley, CA called Berkeley Bowl, known to all those food lovers in the Bay Area. It’s amazing mainly because of it’s unbelievably vast produce section. To give you an idea, if your typical grocery store carries 5 types of apples, Berkeley Bowl will have 20 varieties. And the prices are pretty fantastic. What is not fantastic, however, is the teeny, tiny parking lot and narrow aisles. People who don’t live here think that Berkeley residents must be peace-loving, easy going folks- they are not. I have come very close to getting into a fist fight in that parking lot more than once. In fact, I haven’t been to the store in about a year, even though it’s almost on the way home from work. So let me get back to the hugging… They just built the 2nd Berkeley Bowl, called Berkeley Bowl West (yep, still in Berkeley but on Heinz, right off San Pablo Avenue) and it is everything I’ve ever dreamed it would be. Big parking lot, ample street parking AND a parking garage, super wide aisles, and all of the great produce, mouth-watering prepared foods, and loads of bulk goodies I love. Total heaven!
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