Elmwood Cafe, a Berkeley establishment with roots dating back 98 years, closed abruptly on Thursday, with a two-sentence note posted on the door: “Our sincere gratitude to all in the community,” it said. “Thank you for your support through the years.”
The restaurant at 2900 College Avenue was thrust back into the spotlight this week after the recent controversial Starbucks arrest of two black men in Philadelphia, which re-ignited online conversation about a similar incident that occurred at Elmwood Cafe in 2015 and involved Bay Area comedian W. Kamau Bell.
On Monday, Bell, who is black and a national figure on race and progressive politics, posted a blog on CNN titled “I know what it’s like to get kicked out for being black” about the 2015 incident, in which an Elmwood Cafe staffer asked him to “scram” when he was trying to speak to his wife, who is white.
The couple was having breakfast with their friends and celebrating Bell’s birthday. He had left the cafe to go to work at another cafe, and had just returned with a book for their baby daughter and was sharing it with their group, when the staffer gestured at him. Bell shared the story widely after it happened, including on NPR’s “This American Life” and in his book, “The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell” (Dutton, 2017).
Stories this week in the San Francisco Chronicle and on ABC 7 about Bell’s story fueled a barrage of negative reviews on Elmwood Cafe’s Yelp page, which until now, featured a 4-star rating and positive reviews of the cafe’s brunch offerings. Currently, the Yelp page has an Active Cleanup Alert which pops up when a business receives attention in media reports.
Elmwood Cafe owner Michael Pearce could not be reached for comment nor to confirm that this is the reason for the cafe’s abrupt closure. But the backlash on social media following Bell’s CNN post this week has been so notable, Yelp is monitoring the cafe page, which is full of angry comments from the Bay Area and beyond.
Says Adam M, of Culver City: “I would have gone here with my family until I learned about you kicking out black folks like Starbucks does. How very Berkeley of you. Now I hope you go out of business. I urge everyone in the East Bay to boycott this cafe immediately.”
Its Facebook page features similar comments: “Shame on the Elmwood Cafe (College Ave, Berkeley)!!” wrote one woman. “I remember when this happened a few years ago, and I’m further appalled that NOTHING has been done to prevent it from happening again.”
Pearce ultimately fired the employee who gestured at Bell to leave in 2015 and apologized to Bell and his wife. Together they held a forum on racism in Berkeley at a middle school, where, according to Bell’s CNN post, Pearce promised to “end implicit bias in his cafe, then in the stores on his block, then in the neighborhood, then in Berkeley, then I guess eventually in the entire the galaxy.”
But, when Bell followed up with Pearce regarding his plans, “he quickly stopped returning my emails,” Bell writes. “The website he built, ImplicitBiasTraining.com, is currently just a white space, surrounded by yellow. If there is a better visual representation for white cowardice than whiteness engulfed in yellow, I don’t know what it could be.”
By Friday morning, the site had been taken down.