PUBS & BREWERIES
Bison Brewery
2598 Telegraph Avenue (510) 841-7734
Many beers and ales. Live music Wed-Sat.
Bands play inside, so you can actually eat, drink and hear
music without being smoked at. Don't count on being able
to keep up a conversation, though, except on lazy Sunday
afternoons. Salad & grill menu.
Nice upstairs with couch and bar, but the
patio is littered with butts and in good weather
the patio doors may be left open, with predictable results.
College crowd.
R.I.P.
One of the best bars in Berkeley was listed here until recently.
Its unique feature was the lovely patio and the live music.
Smoking is allowed on the patio, so if you want to hear the music,
you have to put up with the smoke. In fact, until recently, you
could sort of avoid the smoke, but no longer.
People have commented on the smokiness of the patio (and left because of it).
This listing is suspended (hopefully not forever!) with regrets.
Other bars in Berkeley offer live music without the smoke.
Pyramid Brewery
901 Gilman Street (510) 528-9880
Large micro-brewery (tours are offered) and alehouse with full menu.
Movies are shown outdoors in summertime.
Raleighs
2438 Telegraph Avenue (510) 848-8652
Woodsy collegiate restaurant and bar. Good food. Pool tables.
No smoking indoors; nice big heated patio in back with picnic
tables and bar, but it's smoking.
Spats
1974 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley (510) 841-7225
M-F 11:30-2am Sat 4pm-2am
Mixed drinks, wine and beer. Full menu (rather expensive)
of pasta, fish, soup and salad.
Early 1900s decor - dark interior, red plush furniture &
faux stained-glass, including a sign for the "smoke room",
which is obsolete since they do not permit smoking.
Crowded on Friday night.
Thalassa
2367 Shattuck Avenue (510) 848-1766
2pm-2am weekdays, noon-2 weekends
A billiard room with an attractive bar and seating area.
You have to dash through a wall of smoke at the door.
Triple Rock Brewery
1920 Shattuck Avenue (510)843-2739
Woodsy interior decor from the woodsy decor factory. Quite nice.
Bar with their own ales on tap.
Superior food of the salad-soup-pizza-nacho variety.
Table shuffleboard, TV, jukebox. Music is not
obnoxiously loud. Diverse crowd. A pleasant place.
No smoking indoors; upstairs patio is smoky.
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MUSIC
Ashkenaz
1317 San Pablo Avenue (510) 5252-5054
Music and dance club with coffee bar. Wide range of
bands, from Cajun to Jewish. Also rents out
band rehearsal rooms.
Beanbender's
Berkeley's long-running floating music improvisation scene,
featuring local and foreign performers on winds, percussion
and sometimes instruments invented by their players.
See the web site for the current venue.
Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse
1111 Addison Street (510) 548-1761
aka The Freight. One of the oldest folk music
clubs in the US, located in a former theatre.
(I know because I helped tear down the set of the last show.)
Coffee bar & cookies. Acoustic and electric folk, bluegrass, gospel, swing, and
'world' music. Often visited by real icons of folk. Fun holiday shows.
Dedicated staff and volunteers.
A friendly, family place, all ages will feel comfortable.
No smoking, also no alcohol, and you don't have
to wade through clouds of smoke to get inside.
Julia Morgan Theater
2640 College Avenue (510) 84-JULIA
This venerable building, designed by the famous architect
Julia Morgan, has hosted drama classes, theatre,
worship and music for many years.
Theaters in the US are smokefree so the Julia Morgan would not
ordinarily need to be listed here. However,
they have started hosting swing dance, with a live jazz band.
La Peña
3105 Shattuck Avenue (510) 849-2568
Eclectic music venue, mostly with a New World Hispanic
flavor: salsa, South American panpipes, Cuban jazz, Brazilian. It's also
a cultural center with theater, cafe, Spanish classes,
and a store selling music, books and crafts.
This is all in support of their mission, to
pursue social justice through community organization and
to promote understanding between peoples. But they manage
to have fun too! Their web site lists upcoming bands.
Larry Blake's
2367 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley (510) 848-0886
Live bands Thurs-Wed. Blues, Rock and Funk.
Blues jam on Monday nights.
Small cover charge; shows begin 9:30pm.
Restaurant (burgers, salad, etc., pretty good) and bar upstairs;
bar and music downstairs.
No smoking downstairs either; which makes this one of the
rare places you can listen to music, drink and even dance
and not be smoked at. Blake's gets some interesting
bands. Note: don't linger outside, it's like smoking half a pack.
A five-minute walk south of the University of California campus.
Starry Plough
3101 Shattuck Avenue (510) 841-2082
Irish bar and performance space. Small cover charge
on music nights. Interesting bands, from local unknowns
to Jonathan Richman and Penelope Houston. Packed
and sweaty on weekend nights. Darts. Some food. Irish
dance lessons. Revolutionary posters. Guinness.
Mixed crowd of college students, business people,
guys in the crafts, members of other bands. (Well, almost
everyone in Berkeley is in a band. On moving there, you
are assigned either a band or a cat, so if you don't want
a cat... )
Bison Brewery see Breweries & Pubs above
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OUTDOOR SMOKEFREE EATING
This is more problematic than it might sound.
The Alley
Hearst Avenue, just up the hill (east) from the Euclid intersection.
Directly across from the north side of the University of California.
Restaurants of all types share a covered alley:
Korean, Japanese (sells beer), Vietnamese, 'continental', Chinese,
Lebanese, and a hot dog place. A pleasant place in spring & summer.
Espresso Roma
2960 College Avenue
M-Th 6:30-11 Fri 6:30A-midnight Sat
7:30am-12:00 am Sun 7:30-11
Outdoor patio with food service: no smoking signs.
Generally observed, although the patio is next to a bus stop.
Nabolom Bakery
2708 Russell Street, (510) 858-BAKE
M 7-2 / Tu-F 7-6 / Sat 8:30-6 / Sun 8:30-3
Coffee and fresh bread and pastries. Seats outside; lots of
no smoking signs outside which seem to be obeyed.
Odyssia Cafe Bistro
1849 Shattuck Avenue @ Hearst (510) 849-1319
Mediterranean style breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Beer on tap, wines, tapas. Weekend brunch. Credit cards accepted.
Nonsmoking outdoor patio.
Flamenco dance performance every third Sunday at 7pm
(reservations required).
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