All About Bette's
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It's 6:00 a.m. in Berkeley, California, and already people are gathering in
front of Bette's Oceanview Diner. They've been lining up like this ever since
we opened the place in 1982. You see professors and poets, pundits and punks,
students and starving artists, builders, businessmen, neighborhood regulars,
even tourists with maps, guidebooks and reviews in hand.
It's an eclectic crowd, but then this is Berkeley. The birthplace of free speech.
The epicenter of eclecticism. With their love of good food, strong coffee and
lively conversation, our customers give new meaning to the phrase
"counter culture."
Settle into a plush red Naugahyde booth, or find a place at the counter,
and you're likely to be waited on by a cartoonist, a performance artist,
a Doctor of Theology or a rock musician. Drop a quarter into the jukebox
and you can choose from country, to rock, to classical, to opera. Anything
goes. This is no ordinary diner.
The food has never been ordinary either. We look at it this way: a BLT is a
simple, wonderful thing. But imagine a BLT made with thick-cut pepper bacon,
local lettuce, juicy slabs of fresh tomato and homemade mayo on toasted rye
bread from the bakery down the block. It's still simple, but it's really wonderful.
Now imagine an entire diner menu. From farm-style breakfasts to soups, salads,
sandwiches, blue-plate specials, pastries and pies, all our dishes are made from
scratch with fresh, local ingredients.
And then there are the pancakes and the scones. People have been known to
make special trips for them. And we're always getting requests for recipes.
So eventually, we decided to share the wealth, and we began testing and
hand-packaging our first scone and pancake mixes and selling them out of our
takeout shop next door to the Diner.
Frankly, we were a little overwhelmed by the response, and we soon found
ourselves with a second business on our hands: Bette's Diner Products. Today,
our mixes are selling like hotcakes in specialty food shops and grocery stores
throughout the western U.S. They're still made using the same locally milled
flours and premium, all-natural ingredients we use at the Diner.
And now that you've found us online, you can buy them from anywhere in the
world and enjoy them at your place any time. We hope they'll have your friends
and family lining up for more.
Enjoy!
Bette and Manfred Kroening
P.S. The next time you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, please drop by for a visit.
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