I was surprised when I saw that Standard Fare, one of the most popular daytime cafés in Berkeley, had begun to serve dinner. I’d always assumed that owner Kelsie Kerr was passionate about lunch, the type of veteran chef who would rather dice onions with a dull knife than work another evening service, and had built her business accordingly. A line of loyal customers forms down the wheelchair ramp by 11:30 a.m., and shortly thereafter the benches and stools outside are fully occupied. By 2:30 p.m., the kitchen is closed.
But Kerr did not set out to run a local lunch counter. Secretly, she’s not even fond of sandwiches. In 2014, when she opened Standard Fare in a historic brick building in West Berkeley housing commercial kitchens, her concept was for a food business that sold prepared meals to go. It didn’t take off, so she pivoted, pulling from her years of experience at canonical Bay Area restaurants like Zuni Café, Square One and Chez Panisse.
Zoning posed a problem. Standard Fare couldn’t technically operate as a sit-down restaurant, and it certainly couldn’t sell alcohol. And so over the past decade, it’s built its reputation on breakfasts of seedy porridges and frittatas, mostly vegetables barely bound together by egg. For lunch, there are soups, salads and salads masquerading as sandwiches, an entire garden between two slices of pizza bianca. Customers order at the counter and perch where they can. A neighborhood daytime-only spot may not have been what Kerr had in mind, but it’s what she got.