Shop Talk: Big new car wash opens on San Pablo; florist retires after 37 years
Solar Express Car Wash is partially powered by a 67-kilowatt solar array and uses its plentiful greywater to irrigate the property. Catch up on this and other Berkeley retail and small business news.
Sweet Dreams owner dies shortly after closing 50-year-old Elmwood toy store
Gary Gendel built a toy store evoking the ornate style and whimsy of a 19th-century childhood. His wife, Lucia, plans to keep running the candy shop he also opened in the neighborhood in the 1970s.
Jacuzzi brothers’ whirlpool invention bubbled up from their Berkeley machine shop in early 1900s
The bath that started the hot tub craze was created in a shop opened on San Pablo Avenue in 1915 by a family of Italian immigrants.