4 days ago
Rick & Ann's Restaurant, beloved East Bay institution, announces it's closing after 36 years
The Brief
Beloved Berkeley restaurant, Rick & Ann's, announces it's closing
The restaurant has served the community for 36 years.
With a warm, family-friendly atmosphere, the restaurant has offered comfort food with fresh local ingredients.
BERKELEY, Calif. - It has been a Bay Area institution for more than three decades — the go-to place for a birthday gathering, graduation celebrations, breakfast with a bestie, a shared meal with family members from out of town, and more. Rick & Ann's Restaurant in Berkeley is closing.
Owner Ann Lauer said that she plans to hang up her apron on August 3 when the restaurant's lease expires.
"It's a very bitter-sweet thing," Lauer told KTVU, as she reflected on her time embedded in the community and being folded into the memories of many families' important life events and milestones.
The restaurant, known for it's popular breakfast and lunch dishes, first announced its plans to close last month, and for many of her longtime customers, it will be the end of a cherished era steeped in memories.
"I had a lot of people expressing they're upset that we're closing. There's all these kids that, you know, I've held as babies that now come in with their kids. Families that I've seen with their whole families and that go through the cycle of life," Lauer shared, adding with a laugh, "We've had people even come in here before they give birth. We've had people have their water break here."
The backstory
The Texas transplant and Oakland resident moved to California when she was 21 years old.
It was 1989 when Lauer and her now ex-husband, Rick, opened the restaurant on a small Berkeley street in the shadows of the Claremont Hotel.
"It's been 36 years," she said. "We opened a month after the big earthquake," she recalled.
The Lauers envisioned a place, a warm space, accessible and inviting to families, an environment that served comfort food and created a sense of community.
"That was the whole idea. I wanted it to be a family-friendly neighborhood place using fresh and local ingredients and kind of nostalgic of the things we grew up with, that you didn't really find at the time," Lauer explained.
She said the options were limited for folks looking to find a casual dining spot for good food and a place families could go to.
"At the time in Berkeley, it was California cuisine. It was either these really fancy restaurants that were just killing it, and they were so busy, and they were really popular. And there was ethnic food, which was great," she recalled, noting, "There wasn't really a lot in between. And so that was kind of it. We decided to do something more like American fare, with fresh ingredients and kind of remade to sort of fit California. And that was how the concept came up," she shared.
She gave a lot of credit to Berkeley restaurateurs John and Lois Solomon for helping them realize their vision.
Lauer said that before she and her ex-husband opened Rick & Ann's, she had worked at the Solomons' restaurants for years. The Solomons would later become silent partners, providing support both financially and through their knowledge and expertise.
"I owe a lot to John and Louis," Lauer shared. "They were great and really gave us our start."
Over the years, the Rick & Ann brand has undergone shifts and changes. Her ex-husband, with whom she continues to have a good relationship, retired before the pandemic.
"We've gone through so many transitions," she shared.
From the original Rick & Ann's to another place called Rick and Ann's Pantry to Rick and Ann's Restaurant and Catering, to Ann's Catering, the business has evolved and shifted.
Lauer said she actually had plans to sell the restaurant right before the pandemic, but once COVID-19 hit, it was clear that wasn't going to be possible.
So, during a time when many restaurants were unable to keep their business running and were forced to close their doors, Lauer not only pulled through but tapped into her creative talents to re-imagine how she would serve her patrons.
"During the pandemic I got to be super creative, you know, back in the kitchen, and that was great," she said, adding that the world had changed and so there was no other option but to adjust.
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"For me, I like change… people didn't really have a choice but to change, so you know any ideas I had people were pretty open to it," Lauer reflected, recalling how they started offering ready-made meals to-go.
"We created the market," she said, "And I started making little boxes like cookies and icings and things for kids to take home and decorate and do different holidays and stuff."
Dreaming up creative ways to continue to stay in business rejuvenated her and gave her more energy when Covid restrictions began to ease.
"It was just kind of one of those things that ended up being, for me, kind of revitalized a lot. I was feeling pretty run down from having so many employees and different stuff that goes on in day-to-day business. "So it was the time to work with just a few people and sort of, you know, to be creative again," Lauer said.
She explained that after the pandemic, she held on to her plans to sell the business, and if that didn't work out, she knew she would be making the difficult decision to close.
Lauer said she's scaled back her hours a bit in the past year and a half, to prepare for what's next.
"I'm still working, but not near the hours that were my normal hours, and so it's giving me a chance to kind of sort of ease into retirement," she said. "Now sometimes I feel like I don't have enough time to work because there's so many other things that I want to do."
And as for the restaurant, her hope is that the Rick & Ann tradition can continue on in some form.
"I do love the restaurant, and it has so many memories… I'm holding out hope that someone's going to come in that really wants to take over and keep it," she said, adding, "I would want them to change the name."
And for those whose palette has become accustomed to Rick and Ann's dishes, there might be a cookbook to help fulfill those cravings once the restaurant closes.
"I have always planned on doing a cookbook," Lauer shared.
While there is uncertainty about what will happen to the restaurant, it's not all goodbyes. There is good news for Lauer's long-time catering customers.
Ann's Catering will continue at a new Oakland location, off 65th Street, near Ashby Avenue, where the business will be able to work out of a commercial kitchen.
"We've outgrown this one. And I have four employees who've been with me a total of 106 years, so they'll be taking that over," Lauer said. "And I'm going to be helping and going to be kind of on a consulting basis for two years for the catering company."
Dig deeper
Her next chapter also includes continuing the work that she has long been passionate about and intertwined in the business model— supporting children's advocacy groups,
"That was kind of the big focus for us through my time here, has always been, like donation-wise or event-wise, doing the same kind of help with schools, and children, and events, things that benefit them," she said.
Beyond that, she's excited about diving into the things that bring her joy.
"I love gardening, I love the outdoors, love the ocean. There's a million things," Lauer shared.
But as she looks back at what she's built, she feels confident that Rick & Ann's has remained committed to the original vision of what it set out to offer its community.
"Through the years you see all the different food fads that come and go," Lauer shared. "There was many times people go, 'Oh, you guys should get a pizza oven because you could make so much money. Pizza's really popular.' Whatever the fad is at the time, you know, maybe we should do that. It's like you no, we're going to stay with what we are and work within those parameters, which still gives you a lot of space. But it's just when you try and do everything, you lose stuff."
And it's that consistency that Rick and Ann's customers came to depend on over the decades and brought customers to this familiar spot time and time again.
On any given weekend morning, longtime customers expect that they will need to place their name on a long waiting list to get a table and that it was worth the wait.
Also, consistent was how committed Lauer remained in showing up day in and day out, filling in the gaps when needed. And now, she feels it's time to move on.
"I'm on call when the alarm goes off. And all the other things that go with having a restaurant," she said. "There comes a time when you have to say you have limits, and so I just thought I want to enjoy this last time before my lease is up."
Meanwhile, Lauer hopes she's able to say goodbye to all those who became part of her life through this place that was more than just a restaurant, but a meeting place, a shared space and a community gathering spot.
"It has been so wonderful to be a part of this community and to experience all of your lives throughout the years," she wrote in a letter to her customers posted on the restaurant's website. "I will miss Rick & Ann's Restaurant and all of you."
