Members of the Berkeleyside team will be at Espresso Roma in North Berkeley today, from 3-4 p.m., to hang out with readers and hear your stories and ideas.
It’s the third coffee session of a new Berkeleyside series, and Frances Dinkelspiel and Tracey Taylor will be there.
On April 27, reporter Emilie Raguso and membership marketing manager Zoë Schiffer set up at Algorithm Coffee, at 1122 University Ave., to kick off the series. More than 20 people attended the event. There were familiar faces as well as new ones. By chance, some attendees met for the first time in person after years of knowing each other only online. Many of those who spoke had lived in Berkeley for decades, or even generations in some cases. All expressed passion about different aspects of the community. It was, wrote Raguso, inspiring to see.
And on Sunday, Natalie Orenstein and Frances Dinkelspiel met with readers at The Vault in South Berkeley. Conversations touched on areas including gentrification, homelessness and policing.
Thanks everyone who skipped the Warriors game and came to The Vault for coffee with @Frannydink @nat_orenstein. Lots of good discussion about power, police, gentrification, homelessness etc. Thanks James Reagan for photos. Next community coffee on Thursday! pic.twitter.com/iFDrl5xsFK
— Berkeleyside (@berkeleyside) May 7, 2018
We hope to hold more events of this kind in the future if there is interest. If there’s interest, we hope to continue the experiment going forward. Know of a spot you think would work well? Please let us know in the comments.
Espresso Roma is at 1549 Hopkins St. (at Monterey Avenue) in North Berkeley.
