Berkeley Reporter

by Steed Dropout
July 12, 2014

You never know when Berkeley’s, sixty year old Caffe Mediterraneum will explode with youth. College-youth from Cal…and today, eight-year-olds from the peninsula.

That You never know who will show may be why Berkeley’s oldest cafe and the first East-Bay baristas, is for sale. You could call the Caffe Mediterraneum a Berkeley coffee-house icon, or you could call it misspelled.

Youth was to have saved the Med.

When the Med doesn’t explode with youth or anyone else, it can be big, cold, and empty. At the moment there are ten customers (room for 100) beneath a 20 foot ceiling. The next moment could bring a rush of youth. Therein lies the rub.

The customer flow is flawed.

Erratic customer flow and a long list of missteps has brought the Med to yet another crisis. This would be its third crisis in 60 years.

In 1992, Roz Gordon, 83, convened a star-studded poetry reading on the Med mezzanine. It wasn’t a fundraiser, but rather a tribute. Everyone thought the Med was dead. In a way, it was dead, if you compare the Med’s successors to the original joint, which ran like a Swiss watch and payed off like a winning lottery ticket.

The ownership change in 1992 from the cafe’s founders to a couple of cooks was perhaps the beginning of the end for the Med.

Brad Cleveland, 83, was there for a local newspaper the day the Med opened in 1957. “Lines reached around the block, and they continued that way for many years,” said Cleveland, adding “it was a place to meet new people because you couldn’t find a seat to yourself.”

Med Heads as we call ourselves are now sitting here all by ourselves wondering what will become of us. Will we be swept aside for something stylish, that gleams, or stuffed and put on display? If swept aside, at least they’ll have to use a broom and that’s good.
Continue reading “Whatever Happened to Berkeley’s Iconic Hippy Coffee-House?” »

by Steed Dropout
June 26, 2014

MED IS DEAD!

Preceded in death by many of its most illustrious Med Heads, Berkeley’s oldest South Side business is for sale. Its ghosts, said to be ghosting behind the Med mural, are not for sale. It’s history is in the books.

Gone with the Wind. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Berkeley’s Oldest Cafe Could Become Starbucks” »

by Steed Dropout
May 25, 2014

“I’M SURE IT WOULDN’T INTEREST ANYBODY OUTSIDE A SMALL CIRCLE OF FRIENDS” —PHIL OCHS

A small, but dedicated, circle of friends remembered Gina Sasso, 49 at the time of her death three years ago. They met, Saturday, at Berkeley’s historic Caffe Mediterraneum, a Sasso haunt.

As police and EMTs rallied to the assistance of a disabled homeless man outside the cafe, Saturday, Sasso was honored for her dedication to Berkeley’s disabled and her dedication to nearby People’s Park.

Man Down. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Berkeley’s People’s Park Activists Remember” »

by Steed Dropout
Apr. 15, 2014

If you want to catch crooks and fight crime, you head for the Med.

That’s Telegraph’s Caffe Mediterraneum to you; to me its a crime lab.

Tom came to the stairs, where he called out to me, “someone’s ranting and raving.” Here at the Med you can’t tell the rants from the raves.

Raving Begins. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Berkeley Telegraph Ave Crime-in-Progress” »

by Steed Dropout
Jan. 12, 2014
Berkeley, Ca

DAY OF THE LIVING DEAD

Those Med heads who could soon become dead heads, gathered on the Caffe Mediterraneum’s [historicTelegraph Ave. hot-spot] mezzanine, Saturday, to re-create the spirit of possibly the greatest med-head ever, Jean Margron–1931-2013.

Med heads were joined by more than 125 of Margron’s friends, making this the mother of all med gatherings. The three-hour celebration, which climaxed with deflated balloons signifying surrender to death, turned the downstairs Med into a ghost town.

Ghosts of the Med, according to legend, live behind the Med mural, but emerge at Med tables where they engage in conversation with the living. Margron, who died at home surrounded, characteristically, with a harem anointing his brow, joined table #2–after the ceremony memorializing him–to perform his raised eyebrows routine and reassure his friends, who depended on his presence for peace of mind.

Jean Margron, 1931-2013. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Ghosts in Berkeley” »

by Steed Dropout
Oct. 21, 2013
Berkeley, Ca

CAFFE MEDITERRANEUM, AMOEBA HIT

This is my beat, as twenty odd Med stories attest.

Recently, I reported on a Med tip-jar robbery, and shot a series of Telegraph cop’s assisting or arresting or both. I need not stray far from the Med for one of my South Side Tales (@Berkeley Times, print only).

I’m on to the graffiti on Telegraph. Last year, I toured Teley graffiti with Roland Peterson, CEO of its business district, and watched his two-man graffiti crew scrubbing walls.

Drop-Out Motto: 'Graffiti Gallery, Telegraph/Haste vacant lot, since '84.
Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Graffiti Baffles Berkeley’s Telegraph” »

by Steed Dropout
July 24, 2013

EVER COMMEND A COP-OP?

I’m sending this to Michael K. Meehan, Chief of Police, Berkeley Police.

I just witnessed (Wednesday) as fine a work of Berkeley policing as I’ve ever seen.

The man seated near me outside the Cafe Mediterraneum on lower Telegraph, was stark raving mad. Med owner Craig Becker heard the commotion in his mezzanine office and came outside to chase off the guy, who had stowed his gear outside the store.

Officer Brian Mathis, who had been working this case from nearby, drove up and approached the man.

Officer Mathis, background; Raving Man foreground. Note Officer's stance.
Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “One Man Berkeley Cop-Operation” »

by Steed Dropout
Feb. 8, 2013

“Why do you punks make me do it?” — Robert Ryan in Nicholas Ray’s 1952 On Dangerous Ground.

Purloined food, public defecation, wee wee, and an (almost) stolen cop car were featured entertainment at Berkeley’s naughty Cafe Mediterraneum a few weeks ago.

Craig Becker, Cafe Mediterraneum’s feisty impresario has brought more entertainment to his Telegraph landmark coffee shop, cheap eats center, and recently — beer and wine — than any rowdy road house.

After more than half-a-dozen altercations, Becker’s fight record (6-0), if not his methods, would be the envy of any fighter. Sometimes he must think “why do you punks make me do It?”

'Coconut,' left. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Why Do You Punks Make Me Do It?” »

by Steed Dropout
Sep. 4, 20012

Berkeley, Ca

[Editor’s note: this is the 12th in a series on one of the most notorious cafe’s in the known world, Cafe Mediterraneum, on Berkeley’s equally famous Telegraph Ave., and of note in the unknown world as well. Home of the Free Speech Movement, witness to the People’s Park riots. Tear-gassed, shot-up, invaded. Unlike your coffee-house, it has it’s own WIKI page.]

CAFE MED MAKING BERKELEY POLITICAL HISTORY

Perhaps you missed the media curve on this: Berkeley will vote, Nov. 6, to ban-sitting on walks in business districts. Berkeley has ten sizable business districts.

Berkeleyans have been tearing at their chests over this since late last year, when the issue became a rallying cry among local radicals.

The Med is at the eye of the hurricane.

Running Wolf, shadow candidate for Berkeley Mayor kicks off his campaign at Cafe Mediterraneum last week. Craig Becker, a personal friend of RW's, asked him to take his sign out of the Med window next to the Dustin Hoffman table.

Continue reading “Cafe Med Tale Twelve” »

by Steed Dropout
June 27, 2012

HOW HOME FRIES STIRRED MEDHEAD NATION

Berkeley, CA

Berkeley’s Cafe Mediterraneum Medhead Meddlers Still Care Enough To Meddle in the Med’s future. (And Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers).

We first meddled when our coffee-house friend bought the famous Telegraph Avenue cafe four years ago. Back then, we were concerned over lighting, seating, food, the quality of the coffee, the restroom, and decorum.

Owner Craig Becker, 59, barely tolerated our interference, but let us vote on many aspects of his plans to save the Med. He called us, “the peanut gallery,” with avuncular aplomb.

Becker not only survived his rocky first years he, weathered a frivolous boycott over a spy-cam, loud piano, and alleged second-rate entertainment, which Medheads claimed was voice-overing its free speeches.

Craig Becker, 59, Med owner, before the fries-flap. But what kind of hound - beagle?

Continue reading “More Café Med Tales” »