[The world’s first Ohlone restaurant closed after a one- year
pilot. Now it’s coming back ]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

CAFE OHLONE AT UC BERKELEY ON SCHEDULE TO REOPEN.  
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Elena Kadvany
November 29, 2023
San Francisco Chronicle
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_ The world’s first Ohlone restaurant closed after a one- year
pilot. Now it’s coming back _

Cafe Ohlone, an outdoor restaurant at UC Berkeley, will reopen in
2024., Cesar Hernandez

 

  Cafe Ohlone closed in May at the end of its one-year pilot serving
food in a courtyard outside the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of
Anthropology. But now, under a new agreement with the university, it
will return as a permanent space with broader, campuswide reach.

Meanwhile, the Cafe Ohlone team is partnering with the UC Berkeley
Lawrence Hall of Science and other campus entities to spearhead
initiatives beyond the restaurant. Cafe Ohlone co-owners Vincent
Medina and Louis Trevino and general manager Deirdre Greene have been
hired as staff members at the Lawrence Hall of Science, which Greene
called a “demonstration of systemic support” from the university.
Their new university positions will be funded by income from Cafe
Ohlone, funding from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research
and grants.

“So often there’s talk about land acknowledgements or recognizing
Ohlone people in words but very seldom are there actions placed to
those words that create sustained change,” Medina said.

The Hearst Museum, which operated Cafe Ohlone’s previous contract,
is no longer involved.

The outdoor restaurant will reopen at the same location at Bancroft
Way and College Avenue in March and continue to operate on a seasonal
schedule, closing

 during the rainy winter months. Cafe Ohlone became known as a
groundbreaking pop-up that used dishes like acorn soup and walnut
flour biscuits to educate people about Indigenous history and culture.
But Medina and Trevino hope this new partnership will push their work
beyond food.

They’re working with the Lawrence Hall of Science and a group of
Ohlone youth to design a virtual reality exhibit, for example, that
will overlay the traditional Ohlone world on the East Bay of today.
The public science center also has a new outdoor nature lab filled
with native plants identified by signage in the Chochenyo language.
They plan to invite Medina and Trevino into classrooms across campus
to speak to students about Ohlone culture.

“There’s a deep, shared concern for promoting a clear
understanding of the Ohlone community,” said Susan Gregory, deputy
director of the Lawrence Hall of Science. “The people who were here
before the university was are truly important.”

  It’s a significant development in a long-fractured relationship
between the Ohlone people and the university, and in particular the
Hearst Museum, which holds native remains and cultural objects and
whose name is a reminder of the Ohlone people’s painful history in
the East Bay.

    “For decades the family has made a presence on campus in
different ways. So much of that time, the doors have been closed,”
Trevino said. “It’s now very concrete. There won’t be any more
closed doors on campus.”

The duo is also working on another ambitious project: purchasing land
to build three new restaurant spaces, native gardens and a culinary
and educational center in the East Bay.

Reach Elena Kadvany: [email protected]

Nov 29, 2023

By Elena Kadvany

Elena Kadvany joined The San Francisco Chronicle as a food reporter in
2021. Previously, she was a sta! writer at the Palo Alto Weekly and
its sister publications, where she covered restaurants and education
and also founded the Peninsula Foodist restaurant column and
newsletter.

She can be reached at [email protected].

* Native American foodways
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* Native American cuisine
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* Ohlone
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* Indigenous history
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