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: elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com
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 Elena.Kadvany@sfchronicle.com.
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