Around the Table at Zocalo Coffeehouse

By Cheryl Koehler

 

 

It’s often said that half the pleasure of good food and drink is the company with which we enjoy it, and so with that in mind, Edible East Bay presents “Around the Table,” offering news of selected East Bay places and projects where the spirit of camaraderie is as important as the fare.

Sometimes a cup o’ something is all that’s required for an excuse to get together. That’s why we have bars and coffeehouses. Sometimes the problems of the world are solved. Sometimes the conversation is with one’s journal or a book. Sometimes there are pastries.

At 645 Bancroft in San Leandro, a cup of coffee and a pastry are very likely to be accompanied by conversation with neighbors. Patrons who gather around the tables at Zocalo Coffeehouse are mostly from the neighborhood, and neighborhood issues are likely to be central topics.

“Zocalo is a Mexican term for town square or town center,” says Zocalo Coffeehouse owner Tim Holmes, explaining that he chose the name for his one-of-a-kind coffeehouse and roastery because he felt that San Leandro needed a gathering place. “It’s a really nice community,” he adds. Holmes notes that when he and his wife, Mitch, moved there in 1996 they were drawn by the physical beauty of the San Leandro neighborhoods, the strong artist presence, the venue for live theater right in the civic center, and the small-town feel. “It’s one of the few places in the Bay Area where you can still find the original downtown, but I want to make it more walkable. I want it to be a place where people are meeting, socializing, and entertaining themselves.”

Foot traffic to Zocalo Coffeehouse was significant on a Friday evening a year ago when I came by for a spoken word performance event. The place was jammed and folks were milling around and conversing between acts, lending an ear and a hearty round of applause as writers came and went from the microphone. The crowd was remarkably diverse. A large family poked in and decided to linger at the entryway through a whole set of performers. A young couple dressed up as if for a special date snuggled into their seats near the wall. An older woman with a walker sat attentively up front. The aroma of freshly brewed chai and espresso drinks made caffeine seem enticing, even at the late hour, while plates of cookies beckoned from the counter and fruit smoothies and glasses full of lemonade (freshly made from local lemons) paraded toward the tables. Kids munched on raisins and sipped milk and hot chocolate.

“It’s not about coffee,” says Holmes. “It’s about community building.” He reiterates this mantra at every opportunity, but yet, he can get pretty excited when talking about coffee, and one gets the sense that he harbors an abiding love for it. “It’s not a bean, it’s a pit,” he explains. “When it’s green, coffee smells like alfalfa. As it roasts. the sugar caramelizes and it starts smelling like peanut butter before it smells like coffee.”

 

Holmes bought the business—then called Dean’s Beans—from Dean McCoy. The coffee roaster was part of the sale, and Dean taught Tim and Mitch the art of roasting. “Dean learned roasting from Alfred Peet,” Holmes says. “According to Dean, Peet didn’t do the ‘deep roast’ that Peet’s Coffee is known for now. Dark roasted beans are carbonized. We prefer the lighter roast that Dean taught us to make.”

Zocalo customers seem to prefer it as well. During a renovation, Zocalo had to shut down for half of the summer. The roaster moved to the Holmes’s kitchen and Tim hand-delivered beans to any customers who requested the service. By the second week, he says he was delivering to a dozen nearby homes and getting to know the community better in the process.

“Mitch does the roasting,” Tim says, adding that his wife prefers for him be the public persona and was not interested in being interviewed. “She’s got a better palate than I do, and she’s got the patience to determine the right timing for roasting—there’s only a 15-second window to pull the beans out before they start to burn.” Holmes explains that the art of roasting involves attention to smell, color, and sound. “There are two cracking sounds you listen for. The first crack is when the water is released, and the second happens when the oil is released.”

While Mitch is minding the roaster, Tim is more likely to be minding the conversation or their tiny son Calvin, for whom Tim provides childcare five hours a day. Tim Holmes left a very successful position as an “evangelist” at Apple Computer two and a half years ago to start Zocalo. (According to the MAC Daily Journal, an “evangelist” is a “bridge between the people making technology and the people who have to use it.”) Mitch still holds onto a high-tech job in the South Bay. Tim is grateful to her since it allows them to afford the coffeehouse, which at this point is not a big money-making venture.

When asked what he thinks sets Zocalo apart from other coffeehouses, Holmes says, “Have you ever been in one that has a kids’ corner?” I admit that I can’t think of one, and for that matter, I can’t think of a coffeehouse attached to a yoga studio either—customers can flow right into their yoga poses at the Java Gym through a doorway from the coffeehouse. Zocalo serves as a meeting room for many different organizations and occasions: moms’ and kids’ groups, deaf seniors, neighborhood organizations, public meetings with city officials. It’s also a big birthday party venue, and according to Pete Escovedo (musician father of Sheila E, for you young ‘uns), a hangout for quite a few folks in the music industry.

But mostly, Zocalo attracts families, and that is because kids are welcome. Holmes says that he deliberately did not enclose the kids’ area because he doesn’t want kids to feel trapped—they are part of the community, too. While Zocalo is not a teen hang out, Holmes is fairly certain that as the current crop of Zocalo kids turn into teens, they will find that Zocalo is still a cool place to meet up with their friends. When a high school concert was held there recently, the teens wanted to order cappuccino. “We used decaf,” says Holmes. “I don’t think any of them realized they weren’t drinking real coffee, but it made them feel grown up.”

Morgan Mack-Rose, a regular customer who has a young child, says that when she and her husband Charles first moved to San Leandro three and a half years ago, one of their criteria in choosing a house was for it to be within walking distance of a good cafe. “People laugh at us when we say this, but it’s true! Having a young child, we needed a place that was open early and provided a destination that welcomed all three of us.” She says that when Tim and Mitch created Zocalo it transformed the neighborhood. “I’ve heard from many new homebuyers that one of the reasons they chose this neighborhood was because of Zocalo. Zocalo provides the much-needed public space for a community to grow and flourish. Tim and Mitch prioritized community building by providing a long table for meetings, a bulletin board for announcements, and open mic nights. They have graciously allowed the San Leandro Parents Network, among other groups, to hold community potlucks and gatherings. This has served as a call to area businesses to become more actively engaged in community building versus just commerce building.”

Holmes also moves his agenda along by serving on his neighborhood association. He admits that he has been encouraged (as many as a dozen times) to run for city council, but that with a young child and a growing business he doesn’t have time at the moment. Meanwhile, he wonders if he can’t be more effective working from the outside of an elected body—perhaps doing just what he does at Zocalo. He is investigating the idea of opening two more Zocalos in the area, and he is always trying to track down (or encourage) purveyors of locally made organic foods to serve at Zocalo. He says his priority is to buy everything he can in the neighborhood or at the very least from somewhere in the Bay Area. His website gives information about some of his favorite local businesses.

Listening to Holmes talk about his passions, it strikes me that political activism doesn’t have to center on global or national issues. Supporting locally made products and enjoining a neighborhood dialogue are big steps toward larger solutions.

 

Zocalo Coffeehouse
645 Bancroft Ave, San Leandro
510-569-0102, zocalocoffeehouse.com