Local business

Amanda’s to close at end of month

December 22, 2010 12:23 pm by Lance Knobel

Amanda West opened Amanda's Fresh two years ago to serve healthy fast food.

Amanda’s Feel Good Fresh Food, one of the symbols of new life and dynamism in Downtown Berkeley, is to close on December 31. Amanda’s opened two-and-a-half years ago at 2122 Shattuck and won praise for bringing a healthy approach to fast food. Earlier this year, Amanda West, the eponymous founder, was named woman entrepreneur of the year for her achievements. Last month, the design of the restaurant won a local design award.

But the acclaim seems to have been a feeble defense against a punishing economic climate.

“We’ve been in negotiations with our landlord, but we weren’t able to get to a number that made sense,” West told Berkeleyside. “This isn’t the end of Amanda’s, just the end of us in this particular location.”

Amanda’s will be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas, but other than that plans to use its final week as a “celebration”, with the regular opening hours of 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. West said that since opening, the restaurant had diverted over 125,000 gallons of refuse from landfill to compost and had, by her calculations, saved customers over 10,000 pounds worth of calories compared to regular fast food alternatives.

West said that she was looking at a number of new locations, but her priority now is an orderly closing of the Shattuck restaurant. Since launch, she has been interested in using the Berkeley location as a model to build a chain of restaurants.

“We’d love to stick around Berkeley,” West said. “The community here has been very supportive.”

35 Comments

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  • Elmwood Neighbor

    Very sad. It was one of the few places that could get me to walk from campus to downtown for lunch.

    Good luck in finding a new place. Your food is good and I loved sitting at the big, long table.

  • Tim C.

    Surprising to me that commercial landlords aren’t more flexible in today’s climate

  • Eric Panzer

    Perhaps yet another indirect victim of Prop 13. Why offer a competitive lease now when you can you can cheaply sit on a property and hold out for a market turn-around?

    Seems to me like another example of why Berkeley should at least look into the cost/benefits of a retail vacancy fee.

    Downtown will miss you, Amanda.

  • Frank Nachtman

    Thanks for the quick healthy meals, Amanda. Half of downtown is empty, and now an affordable healthy restaurant run by nice people in a great location near BART has to close. The longer I live in Berkeley, the less sense it seems to make.

  • David

    I hope that Berkeley’s Office of Economic Development makes a serious inquiry into the affairs of a landlord who would drive out a viable, much loved business in the heart of downtown to create a vacant storefront.

    Thanks to Amanda’s for proving fast food can be both tasty and nourishing. I look forward to seeing the new location. In the meantime, have a great holiday celebration week!

  • TN

    I can see that the spirit of Lloyd George’s land tax still lives on in Berkeley in the 21st century

    But I don’t think that commercial landlords with restaurant properties have long term visions of keeping their properties “fallow” because the taxes are too low. The landlords know that even in the fairly short term that there are many groups of people who have the ambition of operating restaurants in attractive areas of the Bay Area including Berkeley.

    There always seems to be someone who wants to open a restaurant badly enough to meet the landlord’s asking price for rent and terms. The aspiring resauranteurs feel that they have the “formula” to make their project work. Look at all the restaurtants that open in locations where many restaurants have failed in short order and then soon fail themselves.

    The commercial landlord’s customers are not diners. They are the resauranteurs. As long as there’s a demand from the resauranteurs, the rents won’t go down.

  • Cara

    I am SO disappointed to hear this! Amanda’s is one of our favorite Berkeley restaurants!

  • Julie

    I am so, so, so sad to hear this. Amanda’s was my go-to place for a quick, satisfying bite. It will be missed!

  • Bill

    Very sad. I just don’t get the landlords in Berkeley – just another vacant store front, how much do you make on that?

  • Tom

    After 25 years in Berkeley I’m as convinced as ever that there will NEVER be a coherent downtown plan. The only “success story” has been the army of smelly and obnoxious bums, while downtown just keeps going to sh*t. Shuttered store fronts and human feces on the sidewalk — that’s what Berkeley has to show for itself.

  • tizzielish

    A couple comments make it sound like there are people eager to open restaurants in any empty retail space — take a look around. There are many empty storefronts in downtown.

    I have always thought Amanda’s had a poor location. It is close to BART, yeah, but it across the street from the main entrance and a little hidden from the street, with the BART elevator building blocking it from street view.

    There is an empty retail space, new and unfinished, at the corner of Kittredge and Oxford (where Oxford becomes Fulton). Wow, I would love to see Amanda’s move in there. With Gather and Saturn Cafe down the block, Oxford is getting more and more pedestrian traffic. Check it out, Amanda. If you land in there, then maybe retool a bit so you serve coffee/pastry too. The space is right next to the new Groove Yoga: can’t you just see all the yoga folks sipping green tea.

  • Eric

    Berkeley needs a vacancy tax to motivate landlords to flex on rents. There is a civic cost to these empty storefronts and we deserve to be compensated for that.

  • deirdre

    I’m really disappointed. What a great place to go for a healthly inexpensive meal! We’ll miss you Amanda.

  • http://tv James

    This is disappointing. Perhaps you should see that Amanda gets to the Local Business Forum on the 24th so people can learn from her experience.

    The location may not have been “perfect” but if it could not be sustained while situated near BART, BCC, Berkeley High and Cal then I doubt we’ll be seeing them try a new spot elsewhere in town.

  • Claudia

    So sad to see Amanda’s go. We loved it. It was the perfect lunch spot with our two year old after Habitot or the Y. Wish I had done more outreach to those parents to keep the place busier.

    Claudia

  • Jimmyriddle

    Rents are high because property taxes are high. Property taxes are high because people in Berkeley rarely say no to any ballot measures and property tax owners are footing the bill for a bloated city hall and bloated pensions. I doubt the property owner is going to get better rent from a new business as there are many vacant stores. Most likely he was just trying to cover his mortgage, property tax bill, city license and liability insurance.

  • http://www.yourmomissoberkeley.com Berto

    Sad. Sad sad sad. I’ll miss Amanda’s. Good luck in the future.

  • Business Owner

    I own a company with business in three different US states, and I live here in Berkeley. We have tried to help support the economy here by opening a location, and had to shut it down when we discovered just how unreasonable local landlords tend to be.

    Let me be blunt: the reason downtown Berkeley is full of empty storefronts is due to the landlords having little or no incentive to negotiate short-term discounts with their tenants to allow their businesses to thrive. If the city wants downtown to thrive, they need to charge market value of the rent to the landlord as a business license fee when their property stays empty. If the landlords know that not only will they lose the rent, but they will actually have to pay rent to the city when their business license comes up for renewal, we’re going to see every single storefront and office slot in Berkeley filled within weeks.

  • Eric

    @BusinessOwner — a creative take on a vacancy tax. Seems to make perfect sense to me. Where’s the leadership on the city council to make it happen? Jesse? Kriss?

  • EBGuy

    2120 & 2122 Shattuck: Tax basis $782,271
    Alameda County property records online are not the best; it appears to be owned by:
    BANKER, STEVEN H & JENNIFER J
    CHRISTOPOULOS, CONSTANTINE & J
    A quick search on the internets brings up Mr. Banker’s commercial real estate services company. Perhaps Berkeleyside can give them a call (“we don’t comment on lease negotiations”).

  • Business Owner

    The thing is that the problems Berkeley faces are completely fixable, literally overnight. However Eric, you just asked exactly the question worth asking — why is the leadership to do so absent?

    My experience is that the government here largely exists for one goal only – to create permanent jobs for the employees of the city. The fact that city employees are making six digit salaries while the city’s economy is largely dying speaks clearly of a form of ugly corruption. Union-style salaries have no place in government as long as that government is failing the citizens who are paying the bill.

    The leadership is absent. Two minority votes will not bring about significant change, as they’re well.. the minority. I think what needs to happen is that the business community needs to come together and put forward a ballot measure that would place the landlords squarely in their place. We also absolutely need to address the profound corruption within our government at the same time — as long as fat cats in the city government keep making six figure salaries, that’s profoundly wasted money that could be used to provide loans and grants to jump-start the economy here.

    We need creative leadership that actually works. None of the problems we’re facing are all that complicated or all that impossible to fix — in fact, with the right ballot measures (or the City Council suddenly discovering their role in this and passing laws) we can fix most of our problems, literally, overnight.

  • djt

    TN’s comment is interesting – there is information assymetry, with new restaraunteurs not knowing what came before them and why they failed. If more information were available regarding the business that vacated the space, perhaps renters would have more power.

  • Jane Tierney

    I like BusinessOwner’s idea, and suggested as much to our councilmember last summer. Landlords on Solano Ave. are holding out for rates equal to those on Maiden Lane in San Francisco. Instead of the market dictating lower rents, due to empty storefronts, these long time mega property owners are sitting on their properties with no adverse consequences. Something has to change.

  • Darcy

    Where are me and my friends going to get amazing sugar cookies from now on?!?!?!? D: This is terrible.

  • AA

    @business owner: How do you expect to reach the ear of City officials or Council people with your negative and false statements. Although you may have good ideas your attitude s…s. Why not try to be more positive. I doubt that the majority of City workers make 6 figures, I know they don’t, all the information is available for you to read on the City web page. You may also want to check how many employees have been laid off during the slow down. If you don’t like unions, you live in the wrong place and don’t expect union friendly Councilmembers Arreguin and Worthington to agree with you and your anti union sentiment.
    I work near Amanda’s and eat there regularly. It is sad that landlords don’t care and we should try to find creative ways to deal with this greed.

  • DS

    I, for one, stopped eating there after I saw Amanda West speak publicly against Bus Rapid Transit. I used to be a regular because I work so close. Our downtown should have no room for anti-transit businesses.

  • Rut

    I personally stopped eating at Amanda’s when she spoke at city council meetings against bringing Bus Rapid Transit to Downtown Berkeley. It would be ironic if she reopened on the route, and realized how few people really drove and parked at her restaurant adjacent to BART.

  • Street Walker

    “… how unreasonable local landlords tend to be.” Not all landlords… but a few vacancy specialists. Walk around, you see the same names on vacant property. If they were motivated to fill those blank spaces it would be best for the community. The vacancy tax sounds like a start. Kriss and Jesse are the minority in a group of individuals who “talk” about the damage that vacancy creates downtown but they are content to develop more space that can remain vacant for the same landlords. In addition to a vacancy tax we should demand more of our Council. Drag them out of the bed they share with developers and get them out on the streets where they might find their backbone.

  • http://www.sisterschoice.com Nancy Schimmel

    I’ll miss the baked sweet potato “fries.”
    A vacancy tax sounds like it might be helpful.
    I don’t think high taxes are the problem downtown, since the turnover rate for commercial property is lower than for residential. The way Prop. 13 was set up, taxes rise when property is sold, so we residents are paying more taxes but the business landlords are not.

  • Business Owner

    @AA I actually do not think the unions are the problem — they’re just doing exactly what they’re meant to do — look out for their members (rather than the majority of the citizens of this city). Yes, I have actually done my research — in a town where the median income is $58,000, there is absolutely no justification for any city employee to be making more than that, let alone the six figure salaries many of them are actually making.

  • AA

    @Business Owner. If you are such an expert on Unions and City negotiations why don’t you become a mediator? No doubt, some of the City employees’ salaries are high because of their long tenure and because their salaries are protected by their unions. Plus, should the City deprive itself of the talent that could make twice as much in the private sector? So what are you suggesting, that the City break the contract and spend thousands, if not millions, of dollars in legal fees? Further, how much more is Berkeley spending on its’ employees than comparable cities such as Palo Alto?

    Stop complaining and spend more time trying to come up with creative solutions.

  • Peter

    While parsing the logic of landlord-tenant relations in Downtown Berkeley is an important topic that needs addressing, I’d like to return the focus of these comments to the restaurant itself. Amanda’s Restaurant strived, in every aspect of its decision-making process, to build a healthy community. Healthy, affordable, environmentally-friendly food in a clean, welcoming atmosphere with customer service predicated on building lasting relationships with its customers was a breath of fresh air in the Downtown. The vision of Amanda and her staff is highly commendable, and needs to be recognized as having strong relevance in the future of sustainable fast food. Full disclosure: I worked at the restaurant for the duration of its existence, and am proud to be a part of what Amanda’s represented and the positive impact we believe we had on the community. I am honored to have worked with Amanda and the wonderful team at the restaurant, and to have served a community that was incredibly supportive. Thank you, Amanda, for showing us what is possible.

  • Business Owner

    @AA Interestingly, there is an article on this very topic today in NY Times:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/business/02showdown.html

    I’m all for creative solutions, and some of those solutions will inevitably mean getting rid of inefficiencies, such as dramatically overpaid staff in the city. The problem is that the city stands in the way of business development in this town. I’ve done business in a number of different US states, and have never been as thoroughly wrapped up in red tape as I have been in Berkeley. This city makes it damn near impossible to do business, and that needs to change if we’re going to have a thriving economy. A huge reason, in my experience, for that red tape is that it’s designed to create what would otherwise be unnecessary staffing positions at the city.

  • Nancy

    I love Amanda’s, but the problem with downtown generally is parking, plus the general unattractiveness of Shattuck Ave. For Amanda’s, I think that was the wrong location all along, and look forward to seeing them re-open in a more accessible neighborhood, such as Solano Ave. I’d be a regular if it were easier to get to.

  • Name Withheld

    I agree with Nancy.

    Not only is that section of Shattuck a bit derelict, but the homeless that crowd around the Downtown Berkeley BART station regularly use the stairwell in front of Amanda’s as a toilet. Since the BPD ignores the perpetual homeless problem and BART refuses to spend any money on janitorial services the stairwell can remain slick with fecal matter for weeks on end. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find the scent of fetid human waste particularly appetizing.

    Amanda’s seemed like a nice restaurant that was saddled with a terrible location. But thanks to empty storefronts and city laws that are too friendly to transients, that whole block of Shattuck is a terrible location.