A coffee shop in Berkeley, the Elmwood Cafe, has closed overnight without warning.
The abrupt closure comes after a famous comedian alleged that a racist incident happened to him at the cafe similar to the recent arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks.
On Monday, famous East Bay comedian W. Kamau Bell recalled on CNN how he says he experienced racism there.
“In 2015, I was kicked out of the Elmwood Cafe because they thought I was harassing my wife and my 13-week old baby,” Bell said.
Following the interview, online reviews roasted the shop for the alleged racism against Bell.
Crowds of people stopped by the neighborhood eatery on College Avenue in shock that the restaurant shut its doors. Some even wrote messages of condolences.
All questions to Bell were directed towards an op-ed he wrote, where he is skeptical of the motive for the cafe’s closure.
Bell says it’s highly unlikely three years later, it closed because of a few days of inconvenient press and social media comments.
Longtime customers are having a hard time digesting it all. They say the cafe was diverse and welcoming.
KRON4 reached out to the owner of the Elmwood Cafe on why they closed but he did not get back to us.