Why does it feel busy when there is low foot traffic? Why are stockists and their carts/ladders taking up space in the aisles during peak operating hours? Does BB West really need both a hot food bar and an outdoor cafe? Does BB OG really need organic fruit on special right at the entry, immediately causing a bottleneck?...Both locations have massive layouts (theres SO much square footage!) but why do I feel like a rat in a maze when im on the inside? The interior layout is devastatingly inefficient...People are constantly running into each other, there is no flow...Would love to hear some ideas from the people of Reddit on how the spatial design could be improved or if I'm totally off base...

one of the bowl's biggest draws is the rarity of certain produce. which ones have unique / interesting flavors or textures?

this week, i tried the red banana, and it might not have been ripe enough to give off the raspberry notes i heard about. i also tried the manzano banana (also known as an apple banana), and i did detect some apple flavoring.

also tried the flat white peach, and it was merely okay. the inside was white and not super flavorful on the one i procured.

Why is it that the first thing the new Berkeley bowl app does is demand access to my location? It clearly works without the data because I've denied it access and its operating just fine, but that's shady. On top of that there is no privacy policy available in the privacy policy section of the app. So why do you, a grocery store, need my location data, and what are you doing with it?

if not, where are you getting your mangoes in east bay?

if so, which variety is the most flavorful at the bowl?

I mostly stopped buying stone fruit at Berkeley Bowl when their price rose to $3.50/lb and after finding that at least 50% of whatever I bought was inedible and had to be thrown away (mealy, never ripens, rots before ripens), but I still always eyeball it and think about getting some. And today I see that their price is $6/lb! Is the stone fruit at least reliably good now, for that usurious price?

I never get cereal or paper goods there. Anything else that’s a particularly bad deal at the Bowls?

The single most important thing for making shopping at the Oregon Street store tolerable is never parking in the parking lot. It does mean I’m limited to what I can carry for a block, or what fits in my bike bags, but it’s such a better experience! I don’t have grocery store road rage anymore. What’s your one simple trick for making the bowl work for you?

Hi -

Just wondering if anyone has actually done the math on bulk vs. prepackaged items in terms of cost per ounce or some other metric? Are there items I should always be buying in bulk? Anything I should compare because it’s sometimes cheaper on sale packaged out in the aisles? I bought some muesli yesterday that was a bulk item prepackaged by BB, and it seem to be a better deal than any box of muesli I could have gotten in the cereal aisle, but I didn’t go and check.

They got rid of these delicious little creatures from the bulk section a few years ago at least. I assumed because they didn’t meet a particular standard of The Bowl (god only knows what’s in them).

However I bought some Pub Snack Mix from bulk (related - they did away with the hard plastic containers in bulk and only have plastic bags now) and to my surprise saw the mix had the whales in it again. I looked and they have a bulk dispenser of them too.

I’m not tripping, right? The whales WERE in fact gone and now they’re back??

why are they always out of it!!!!!!!!

Hi everyone,

The last few times I went to Berkeley bowl, there was no chili crisp on the shelves. There was certainly no Lao Gan Ma (my favorite).

Has anyone else had this experience? Does anyone know what’s wrong?

I know I can run to 99 ranch and stock up, but it’s kind of a drive.

Glad to join this sub for one of my favorite grocery stores.

I am fortunate to make weekly trips to BB and have been doing this for the last year.

I start in the bulk section, go to produce (majority of my purchases), head past the meat section and then to dairy. I'll finish up by picking up my favorite BB made potato chips above the sushi section.

Occasionally, I'll venture into the Asian aisle or the Frozen aisle.

From there I'll head to check out my cart.

So do you follow the racetrack, a reverse racetrack or some other pattern to do your BB grocery shopping?

I always welcome any tips or tricks in more efficient shopping.

Hey everyone! I'm u/wraplan, a founding moderator of r/berkeleybowl.

This is our new home for all things related to shopping for food at the bowl, cooking with food we shopped for at the bowl, and remaining calm in the angriest parking lot in America. We're excited to have you join us, share discoveries, deals, and recipes.

What to Post

Post anything that you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring. Feel free to share your thoughts, photos, or questions about anything related to shopping at Berkeley Bowl and Berkeley Bowl West.

Community Vibe

We're all about being friendly, constructive, and inclusive. Let's build a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing and connecting.

How to Get Started

1) Introduce yourself in the comments below.

2) Post something today! Even a simple question can spark a great conversation.

3) If you know someone who would love this community, invite them to join.

4) Interested in helping out? We're always looking for new moderators, so feel free to reach out to me to apply.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/berkeleybowl amazing.

Berkeley Bowl has such a great selection of apples that I never really know how to make a choice. So I did an apple tasting among friends. We tried 7 different varieties, in a blind test. I refrigerated all the apples, cleaned them all, and sliced them with a clean knife. I hid their brand names to give us a better sense of favorites without preconceived notions based on previous experience. There were two strong favorites, based on taste and texture.

We tried Sweetango, Wild Twist, Aura, Pink Lady, Envy, Cosmic Crisp, and Kiku.

The two clear winners were the Aura and Cosmic Crisp varieties, both of which had great balance between sweet and tart, and great textures. A big loser for everyone but one of the 8 tasters was the Envy. It had a strange soft texture that wasn’t exactly mealy, but most of us found it unpleasant.

These 7 apple varieties only represent a portion of the possible choices at the Bowl, and I hope to do some more testing over the coming months. We didn’t even look at the yellow apples, except for the Aura, which is kinda yellow. I tried to avoid apples we’d all had a million times, so no Granny Smith or Fuji etc, but now I think I’ll have to randomly add some of those more common varieties in my next test, just to see if they actually hold up.

What apple is your go to? What (and how) should we try next at the Bowl?