The Starbucks corporation announced last year that all but the smallest of its stores would be fitted with a wireless hub for users of laptops and other Internet-able devices. So I waited for our own Starbucks to get it.
Today I called the nine Starbucks stores in Pinole, Hercules, El Cerrito, Berkeley and Emeryville. Each had a T-Mobile Hotspot installed months ago. A random check in rural areas of the state found the wireless Internet hubs installed even there.
The local store manager, Deborah Edwards, had no explanation. The Point Starbucks has seating, so it's supposed to have a Hotspot. She suggests you complain to corporate headquarters. Call 1-888-796-JAVA.
Edwards insists the store is doing well otherwise.
The two names on the beer-and-wine-sales application posted at the old Annie's Cafe are Hindi, says one local authority. Yet I hear that Vorapoj Phoonpirom and Boonyalak Viboonlarp, also known as Joe and Pat, will serve Thai food, not Indian.
Joe and Pat already own another restaurant, says one source, in Albany on Solano near Stannage. I haven't been able to find out the name or address yet.
At 130 Washington, a few people have already heard the sound of progress. Behind the new cardboard that replaced the white paper taped to the glass, someone started up a jackhammer late this afternoon.
Our own Randall von Wedel's company CytoCulture, based in the Point, scored this week when a Fairfax gas station, Alfa Gas, elected to serve the company's vegetable-based diesel fuel at its pumps.
Just after midnight Saturday morning, witnesses at a party on Railroad Avenue told police they saw a man and a woman he had danced with struggle for a gun. Soon after, the fellow party-goers heard gunshots and saw the man drop dead. So reported the West County Times on Sunday. The man, Wendall Valencia, was 22 and lived in San Francisco. Police didn't find the woman or the gun.
The incident occurred in a house recently known by at least one Point businessperson for wild parties.
Correspondent Paul Thompson, a known character-on-the-square and observer of the wee hours, has pronounced the Starbucks sign at 2 a.m. the town's "loudest noise." The visual pollution is so great it crosses over to the other senses, he says.
Subway's colors are even brighter, and the thought of them hanging over the square may yet awaken Point people to the looming invasion.
Another character on the square, Rosamaria's Cafe owner Mike Nova, has already taken the threat seriously. At his computer, correspondent Nova did some reconnaissance on Google (a popular Web search engine) and turned up interesting info about the chain. He has put the printed pages on display in the cafe library (to the left of the order counter).
The prospective franchisee, said to be a Pakistani woman, is reported to have visited businesses around the square to test reactions. TOTP doesn't yet know what she heard.
S train will not stop at Bank of Richmond building
Months ago Subway, the global fast-food chain, offered Mark Howe $2.50 per square foot for part of the first floor in his restored Bank of Richmond building at West Richmond and Washington. But the custom wooden windows, briquetage and the grand copper cone just wouldn't go with a plastic Subway sign.
Instead, Howe offered a local business a sweet deal: $1.50 per square foot--and they took it. Their new establishment will occupy the entire first floor with something no one would have guessed and that should complement the cone. Details, and the story, when the final document has been taken to the bank.
Howe says opening day should come in the second half of this year.
Oh, one more thing. Even though Subway won't stop at Howe's building, it might stop down the street. Watch for details.