Sam Butarbutar and Wentner Shyu, the proprietors of Berkeley’s Third Culture Bakery, resorted to Instagram to express their displeasure with recent local media coverage. In the post, the husband-and-wife founders provide “specifics that were not included in the article,” which seems to be a reference to a June 1 report in the San Francisco Chronicle regarding stop and desist letters issued on behalf of the firm to various bakeries around the nation.
According to the Chronicle, the pair holds the trademark for the term “mochi muffin” and has been known to contact companies like CA Bakehouse to guarantee that others do not sell things with the same name. The article describes the couple’s motives for pursuing legal action to safeguard Butarbutar’s mochi muffin, and it questions if the two had ever threatened “to shut down a small business,” according to the post. Furthermore, the two claim they never sued anybody over the trademark or sought money from anyone.
The pair has “severed ties with all legal representation” and plans to “reevaluate what it means to own such a trademark,” according to the article. Since the pieces were published last week, everyone from die-hard lovers of the pastry to people who had never heard of it has been witness to the back-and-forth, which has mostly taken place on social media. According to the couple’s article, those who are critical of the bakery and its trademark have been submitting bad Yelp reviews and contacting the shop constantly. It also seems that unhappy people have posted Butarbutar and Shyu’s personal information online.
A hood ventilation fire briefly shutters famed Sacramento Italian eatery Ella Dining Room & Bar in downtown Sacramento, which closed on Saturday. According to the Sacramento Bee, no one was injured, but the restaurant was damaged and will be shuttered until later this week.
One of San Francisco’s most well-known celebrity chefs provides advice on a new horror thriller.
A comedy: Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult are madly in love and rush to a deserted island for a feast. That supper, however, turns out to be a little more than they bargained for. SFGate says that to make sure everything was proper for Mark Mylod’s upcoming movie “The Menu,” the producers employed Dominique Crenn, the San Francisco chef behind Michelin-starred restaurants Atelier Crenn and Petit Crenn, as “chief technical consultant.”
These California cities’ bars may stay open until 4 a.m.
California State Senator Scott Wiener filed legislation on Friday that would allow select California communities to allow people to drink until 4 a.m. San Francisco, Oakland, West Hollywood, Fresno, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, and Coachella are among the cities on the list, according to KRON4. The measure was defeated in the state legislature in 2019.
The coordinator of the Berkeley co-op program muses on cuisine and culture.
The Canonization of Evangeline Buell’s memoir Twenty-Five Chickens and a Pig for a Bride is about many things, but since she spent her life playing guitar, editing books on Filipino culture, and working as the coordinator for the Berkeley Co-op, it’s also about cultures colliding. The East Bay Buell recalls connecting with her “Black, Portuguese, Mexican, Greek, and Japanese neighbors” over “adobo, linguisa, tamales, blues, and jazz.”