The Rick & Ann restaurant, a beloved Berkeley place for comforting meals that opened in 1989, is closing. The final day might be on August three, Ann Lauer introduced on the restaurant web site.
“Thanks for all of your sponsorship within the final 36 years, and for permitting the Rick & Ann restaurant to be a part of your experiences,” mentioned Lauer. “It has been so fantastic to be a part of this neighborhood and expertise all their lives over time … I’ve loved seeing the shoppers that they had as kids, now with their households and a few like grandparents.”
Lauer added that his parallel enterprise, Ann’s Catering, will reside in a “new and largest location.”
San Francisco Chronicle was the primary to report the closing information.
Ann after which husband Rick Lauer opened the restaurant with different industrial companions to supply what they thought was lacking in Berkeley: the “dishes we loved in our childhood,” in keeping with the restaurant’s web site. It shortly grew to become successful for the gang of brunch, drawing one hour strains for dishes akin to crimson flan hash, French toast and tofu.
Through the years, the restaurant attracted a bunch of Hardcore common prospects that included the famous person of Golden State Warriors Steph Curry and his spouse Ayesha Curry. In 2010, Rick & Ann’s cooks impressed each Man Fieri with a spicy sandwich of flank leaves at a celebration of the Oakland Raiders Tailgate, returned and introduced the restaurant for its “diners, tickets and immersions.”
“To name rick & ann’s (which opened in 1989) an east bay establishment is like calling ‘it is a fantastic life’ simply one other Christmas Film,” John Birdsall of the in opposition to Costa Occasions Wrote in 2004. “To Residents of Berkeley, North Oakland and Components of Orinda Panorama Aspect, Immovable and Beloved as The Claremont Resort It Nestles at The Foot of, ITS Avenue a Relic of Craftsman-Period California, on a human and leafy scale. “
Not like many eating places, Rick and Ann survived the pandemic, simply. The enterprise sank right into a “precarious monetary land,” Lauer in a letter to prospects, however managed to outlive pivoting meals orders to hold and opening a mini market that sells specialties of the frozen home. Placing down fully “it’s merely not an possibility for me,” he wrote at the moment.
However now Lauer goes again to journey, immerse himself within the participation of the neighborhood and transfer ahead “in the direction of the following part of my life,” he wrote within the closing discover. (Lauer didn’t reply instantly to a request for feedback).
For anybody who’s misplaced Rick & Ann’s, Ann’s catering menu for the summer season of 2025 is now printed with breakfast dishes with cake, fried hen strips and different comforting charges.