Meet Your Neighbor - Sara Ubelhart

Who are you and what do you do?

I am Sara Ubelhart and I run Zocalo , own  Zocalo Coffee House

What do you love about San Leandro?

San Leandro is just awesome in general, I love the people here, the great community  and the hub that is Zocalo

I love Zocalo I will be working at home and just need to get away from it.  You added food this past year,  What prompted you to do that?

When we were talking to Tim and Mitch about buying Zocaolos we were looking at ways in which we could make it sustainable because of the increase in the overhead, so we were trying to figure out how we could make it.  We wanted Zocalo to stay, we wanted to keep it here, but we also need to figure out how we were going to make it, keep it.  We worked with a restaurant consultant, we looked at the numbers and she said you are buying in all this food, there is really no place around to have lunch, or brunch or a decent meal that is reasonably priced that you could bring your family.  This area has tried, there was the Cornerstone over there, and there was this other breakfast place for a little bit.  Our plan was to build a kitchen along all the empty space along the back wall, but because it came down to the wire I ended up moving the roaster out because it was not clear we were going to stay.  So that space opened up so we were able to utilize that space as the kitchen.

I love that now there is food at Zocalo, it gets to lunch and I can grab something to eat and

continue working.

I have worked here for a long time, I knew that people come and this is their office, a lot of folks work from home or work remotely, we need to figure out if people were going to sit here for 3 or 4 hours a way to get them interested in buying things while they were here. It's not going to pay the bills if some buys a coffee for $2 and sits for 6 hours.  I didn't want it to become this high turn around restaurant , I didn't want to lose that feel.  Tim sold Zocalo to me and all of a sudden it's a sit down for half an hour then we kick you out kind of place.  I want to have the food but have people feel welcome to sit and stay and work, because that what Zocalo is, its basically the living room of this neighborhood.  We didn't want to lose that.  I think the lunch and the more casual food really helps to achieve that.

Now on Thursday, Friday and Saturday you stay open later now.

We are starting to stay open until 9pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  That has been a little slow to get started, I think the word is still getting out there that we are open later.  We had a really cool trivia night.  The Estudillo Estates Neighborhood association put on a trivia night that was hopping, it was really cool.  We are hoping to do more community events like that on those nights.  We are allowed to stay open until 10 because it is a commercial zone , so on nights like that we will stay open till 10.

And you have beer, do you have wine as well?

We have beer and we are doing a wine tasting next week with someone from Wente, which is in Livermore.  She is going to bring in a few of their  wines  so we can taste them.  With beer it was easy, we have Drakes beer and you want to support local and we are getting a few others like the 21st amendment, I have not reached out to them yet.  So the beer was super easy, obviously we were going to do Drakes, with the wine I was happy to find someone that was relatively close in Livermore.  We try to do things as local as we can.

Talk a little about the history of Zocalos, It started as Deans Beans, then it closed and became Zocalos?

Tim addressing the crowd at the closing party

From my understanding when I started working here I was hired right at the year anniversary of Tim and Mitch reopening after their renovation.  I came on early in their ownership.  Tim and Mitch moved here and were working in Silicon Valley, Dean owned the place.  Dean got sick , Tim and Mitch were tired of traveling back and forth .  They wanted to create this hub in their neighborhood so it worked out.  They were able to purchase the business from Dean.  They put their heart and soul into this place and revamp the whole thing.  I never saw it as Deans Beans.  Tim and Mitch created what is here now .  People said I did such a great job.  I just inherited this amazing place, we just had to put in a kitchen and fix the plumbing, everything else was totally them, their vision and what they wanted to see here.  They did so much for San Leandro , it crazy, having worked here for 9 years , saw all the community events, Tim with Steven Cassidy's campaign, neighborhood association meetings happen here,  people just felt like it was their home.  When I moved here it was really great, I just felt at home even being so far away from where I am from.  It's just a great place.

I love the big table,  if you have a group of Scouts or whoever you have enough space to spread out.  Never feels you are all about turnover.  It has this relaxed vibe. 

Zocalos is so huge, it's a huge space, you don't really see coffee shops this big.  It does facilitate so much conversation and is such a great place for people to meet.  There is a kids area too.

You had the Quiz night, do you have any other community type nights planned?

There is a group of literary folks it town that are going to do Zocalo spits on February 5th.  It's going to be their first installment.  I think they have a program every First Thursday of the Month up until May. They have some really great writers coming , and there is an open mike portion of each program, so that's pretty cool.  We have a link of that on our face book  page.  The Author Lemony Snicket is coming, its pretty family friendly but also pretty hip too.  I think it will be good.  We want to do more game nights for sure.  Maybe a Settler of Catan marathon

Any Final Words, pieces of wisdom.

(Laughs) I feel so supported here, the support that I have gotten through this whole process.  We thought it was going to be really easy, we would just be able to buy Zocalo  and it was just going to turn over .  We weren't expecting the health department to come in and have us upgrade the plumbing.  It was a slow and agonizing process.  Just to feel like the neighborhood was behind us every step of the way was so incredible.

It wouldn't be Zocalo without the Staff, the neighborhood and the staff, it just the whole picture.

Thank you so much Sara.

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