The East Bay’s Most Enticing New Cafe? It’s at the Library
Last January, Iliana Berkowitz was paying her weekly visit to the main branch of the San Leandro Public Library with her kids when she noticed that the little volunteer-run cafe inside had been closed for some time. As it turns out, Berkowitz is the baker-owner of As Kneaded Bakery, and she’d been looking for a place to open her first proper cafe.
“I had the vision right away for what I wanted to do,” she says.
Berkowitz reached out to the library director, who, it so happened, was at that moment about to put out a request for proposals for the vacant cafe space. One thing led to another, and, after a months-long process of bid submissions and lease negotiations, Berkowitz opened As Kneaded Cafe this past February. Now, San Leandrans have a new spot where they can sit down and enjoy a slice of warm quiche, a sticky-chewy compost cookie or a sandwich served on one of the Bay Area’s best French baguettes — and check out a couple of cozy summer beach reads, all in the same trip.
As Kneaded isn’t the only cafe in the Bay Area that’s located inside a public library, but it might be the one that’s most enticing to food enthusiasts, given its connection to a bona fide artisan breadmaker. Berkowitz has long made one of my favorite baguettes, baked in the true French style — no sourdough tang, but with a dark, crackly crust and deeply satisfying chew. Her smaller-sized demi-baguettes make a great vehicle for the cafe’s simple sandwiches: The “Chez Aline,” with ham, thin slices of watermelon radish and a thick smear of butter, is exactly the kind of thing you might buy at a corner bakery in Paris. As Kneaded also serves one of the tastiest versions of a quiche Lorraine I’ve had in recent memory — appealingly jiggly and juicy, with a buttery crust and a layer of crisp, caramelized cheese on top. (Just make sure you ask them to warm it up.)
The cafe has also given Berkowitz the chance to start a coffee program for the first time, with a full slate of espresso drinks. This isn’t one of those push-a-button coffee operations; the flat white I tried during my visit was excellent.
Berkowitz says once her bid was accepted, she toured other library cafes around the Bay Area for inspiration. (She was especially impressed by how efficiently Prologue, a Vietnamese American–owned coffee shop at the Walnut Creek library, is able to use its space.) There are, after all, some inherent challenges to running a cafe inside a library. The biggest is that the San Leandro library cafe space doesn’t have an actual kitchen — part of the reason why Berkowitz doesn’t serve hot sandwiches.
The cafe is also affected by the flow of whatever might be happening at the library on a given day — and, in turn, by the funding cuts that have hit public libraries all over the Bay Area. Recently, for instance, the San Leandro city council voted to close the library on Mondays, starting in July.
“Right now, Mondays are a great day for us,” Berkowitz says. For now, the cafe will stay open on Mondays while the library remains closed, but she says she’ll have to keep an eye on it to see whether that continues to make sense.
For Berkowitz, the best part of having a proper, sit-down cafe for the first time is the opportunity for “extended hospitality” that she doesn’t have at her bakery, where the average customer only comes in for three or four minutes. Being inside the library only accentuates that sense of hospitality; Berkowitz says all kinds of people come through and wind up hanging out in the cafe.
“[The library] is such a beating heart of the community,” she says. People might be there to access social services, print out a document, attend a meeting on renters’ rights, or visit the nearby Wednesday farmers market — in addition to folks who make a special trip because they’re diehard fans of As Kneaded’s bread.
The upshot? “We’re seeing a lot more different types of people, and that’s really cool, actually,” Berkowitz says.
As Kneaded Cafe is open Tuesday through Thursday 9 a.m.–7 p.m. and Friday, Saturday and Monday 9 a.m.–5 p.m. at the main branch of the San Leandro Public Library (300 Estudillo Ave., San Leandro).
