Bartavelle Coffee & Wine Bar
1621 San Pablo Ave. (near Cedar Street)
Expected opening: Summer 2022
Bartavelle Coffee & Wine Bar opened back in 2012, in the 1603 San Pablo Ave. spot once occupied by Alice Waters’s shuttered restaurant, Café Fanny. Since then, owners Suzanne Drexhage and Sam Sobolewski have built a loyal following for their daytime menu of sandwiches and salads, and the pre-pandemic, Friday night wine bar pop-up, which they called Bar Sardine, was an instant success.
A desire to make that nighttime wine situation a full-time affair is what spurred them to seek new digs, Drexhage told the SF Chronicle. That’s why they’re headed to the former stereo shop down the street, where — when they open some time in summer 2022 — Bartavelle will open as an all-day cafe, a nighttime wine bar with locally made natural wines and an evening menu of tinned fish and charcuterie they’ll make in house.
In the meantime, you can visit Bartavelle’s interim spot, a takeout window at 1609 San Pablo Ave. where they serve coffee and a menu of to-go items from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
Cafenated Coffee Co
2960 College Ave. (at Ashby Avenue)
Expected opening: TBD
Anyone who passed 2960 College Ave. in 2021 couldn’t miss the many “for lease” signs up at Espresso Roma, the big corner coffee shop that’s been serving patrons for decades. Owner David “Sandy” Boyd told Nosh he was eager to close the location, but couldn’t until his landlord found a new tenant.
That tenant was secured last August, and Roma served up its last latte. Mak Jamasbi, the co-founder and CEO of Cafenated Coffee Co., told Nosh that he’ll open a location of his business in the space. Cafenated first opened at 2085 Vine St. in 2019, brewing up cups made with single-origin beans from women-owned farms that Cafenated hand-roasts in small batches. (It also makes a popular avocado toast.)
As one might imagine with a space occupied by the same tenant since 1980, there’s a lot of construction to be done before Cafenated is ready to open. So much, in fact, that Mak doesn’t have an opening timeline yet. Stay tuned.
Tane Vegan Izakaya
1956 Shattuck Ave. (near Berkeley Way)
Expected opening: spring 2022
Tane Vegan Izakaya marks the first foray into the East Bay for Kin Lui, Raymond Ho and Casson Trenor. They’re the folks behind San Francisco’s high-end vegan sushi spot Shizen; a similar spot, called Chikyu, in Las Vegas; and another Tane Vegan Izakaya in Honolulu. (They also own a sushi bar that serves actual fish in San Francisco, it’s called Tataki.)
An important note, though: Trenor told the SF Chronicle that the Berkeley location isn’t one that they’ll be operating. Instead, the partners decided to franchise and “found an operator they trust.”
Trenor told the Chron that the restaurant’s owners, who have yet to be publicly named, are planning a menu that’s very similar to the Hawaii Tane’s, which means a couple salads, a selection of ramen bowls with broth made from “flowers, seaweeds, and mushrooms” and a selection of nigiri and specialty rolls like the Point Reyes (marinated eryngii mushroom, avocado, spicy shredded tofu, pickled jalapeno, pickled pineapple, sweet shoyu and habanero sauce).
The space, which used to be Kaze Ramen, will be able to seat about 50 people when its owners open the spot some time in spring 2022.
Champions Curry
2506 Channing Way (near Telegraph Avenue)
Expected opening: fall 2022
Everyone’s pumped about Champion’s Curry’s new Berkeley location: Eater SF, the SF Chronicle, and the Daily Cal have all written up the international chain’s plans to open its first Bay Area location in Berkeley.
Established in Kanazawa in 1961, Champion’s expanded into 30 locations across Japan, its website says. In 2020, it started opening spots in the U.S., with outposts in LA and Irvine; more are expected to open soon.
As you might have guessed, the fast food restaurant serves Japanese curry, the rich, dark stuff that fans of Oakland’s Dela Curo know so well. Eater says that Champion’s promises “‘Kanazawa curry,’ an extra-rich version of the dish created by chef Yoshikazu Tanaka,” while the Chron reports that the chain’s U.S. restaurants “use a slightly different recipe” than the Japanese restaurants, “based on what ingredients are available.”
Assuming the LA menu is replicated in Berkeley, there will be katsu sandwiches and salad, and a “Wagyu hamburg gratin” made with American wagyu hamburg steak, macaroni, curry sauce, mozzarella and chives. Right now, they expect to open this fall.
Taracco
2570 Ninth St. (near Parker Street)
Expected opening: March 1
Sequoia Del Hoyo, the former co-owner of Oakland’s popular hash champ Sequoia Diner, went for something lighter for her new Berkeley venture.
Tarocco started as a meal delivery service, but after she stepped away from her eponymous diner, Del Hoyo needed a new spot to prepare Tarocco’s CalMed menu of salads and stews, and eventually decided to open a full-on restaurant, instead. It’s an airy, light-filled space that Del Hoyo designed herself.
She told Eater SF that she’ll open with lunch service, only, then will expand into breakfast. There will also be beer, wine and kombucha on tap, and dishes like “turkey feta meatballs with tzatziki.” Del Hoyo told Nosh that she’s still waiting for a few last inspections, and that she hopes to open on March 1.
