BERKELEY, Calif.—Right beside the University of California, Berkeley, is downtown Berkeley.
Lined with small shops, cafes, and restaurants, Shattuck Avenue normally bustles with people and vehicles; however, it has been quiet since March.
UC Berkeley has announced that its summer sessions and fall semester will be remote due to COVID-19. With the absence of students on campus, Downtown Berkeley businesses continue to see fewer visitors than normal.
Some of these businesses are temporarily closed, while others struggle to stay open.
“In our lunchtime, it used to be crazy busy. We used to [have] here 10, 12 employees per shift before. Now there’s like 2, 3, and it’s not even that busy,” Nikita Adhikari, general manager of Organic Greens Salad & More, told The Epoch Times.
The salad place is right across from the campus and used to serve a lot of students.
John Caner, CEO of the Downtown Berkeley Association, estimates that University-related staff, faculty and students make up a quarter to half of Downtown business.
Other schools doing remote learning in the fall, such as Berkeley City College and Berkeley High School, also contribute significantly to Downtown Berkeley before the pandemic.
Caner said few businesses are permanently closed; more are temporarily closed.
“But that doesn’t mean the students aren’t coming back. Some of them will come back and do online in Berkeley, and some have stayed in Berkeley; we don’t know how many,” Caner told The Epoch Times. “But that’s definitely going to impact the businesses.”
Restaurants make up most of Downtown Berkeley and are an affordable jackpot for hungry students.
Fabrizio Cercatore, founder of Passione Pizza, informed The Epoch Times via email that students make up 70 percent of the restaurant’s business.
“With the school closed and the closure of all the businesses that are functioning for the university, there are not enough people in downtown Berkeley right now,” Cercatore wrote.
Cercatore’s business closed on July 27 and plans to reopen in January 2021.
According to Roscoe Skipper, owner of the restaurant Corso Berkeley, the restaurant closed on July 1 and plans to reopen when there’s a vaccine.
Their customers consisted mostly of teachers and administration rather than students.
“We couldn’t make a go of it without Cal,” Skipper told The Epoch Times in an email.
John Samaras, co-owner of Café Nostos, said his wife and partner help him run the cafe. They only have 30 percent of the number of customers they had before.
He said he has two types of customers on a daily basis: those who live in the neighborhood—“those are the most loyal”—and students, who make up about 30–40 percent of his business.
His business did takeout when the pandemic hit. It did not close, and he plans to keep it open when the fall semester starts, too.
He said they spend a lot of time working for free, but people appreciate that they’re open.
“The alternative is to stay home—be closed and stay home and go crazy. So we figured we provide this service, sense of continuity here, normalcy, and [it] keeps us busy,” Samaras told The Epoch Times.
He said their landlord does not pressure them about rent, so they only have to worry about utilities and food purchases.
Mike, owner of Royal Ground Coffee, told The Epoch Times that they are normally very busy with all kinds of people—students, faculty, tourists, and residents. Now most of his customers are local residents.
They still have the same number of employees, but they work for 8 hours instead of the usual 12.
He said they are not making any money at all and have just enough to pay the employees, rent, utilities, and taxes.
“Everybody [tries] to survive, but how long can you try?” he said.
Dorothée Mitrani, owner of La Note Restaurant, informed The Epoch Times via email that distance learning has impacted their business by at least 50 percent. Their restaurant did not close, and they plan to stay open when the fall semester starts.
Participants can photograph three receipts from different restaurants between July 20 and Aug. 30. Then they will receive a poster and be entered to win a meal for two valued at $50.
