A Montclair staple has closed after more than three decades. Grinders Submarine Sandwiches has been selling lunches out of a tiny Antioch Court shop since 1991, and longtime customers say owner Peter York wanted to retire without fanfare after having served the Oakland hills’ Montclair Village daytime crowd for 35 years.
York was often compared to the “soup nazi” character on the TV show “Seinfeld” because of his insistence on a no-nonsense ordering process. He developed a streamlined style of service that kept customers’ sandwich orders and condiments in his computer.
His menu was two pages long, with 10 types of turkey sandwiches and at least four kinds of ham sandwiches. York would pepper customers with questions if they didn’t approach the counter knowing exactly what they wanted. The closet-sized space is now shuttered with a sign that says it’s permanently closed. No party, no long goodbyes: York retired like he ran his shop — on his terms.
Eyesore: A graffiti-covered U.S. Postal Service vehicle has been delivering mail in the Oakland hills, triggering reaction from residents who are surprised that the truck hasn’t been pulled from the fleet.
The postal employee who drives the vehicle says it is parked on the street outside the Oakland Civic Center at night, leaving it vulnerable to vandals who have been tagging mail trucks in the area for years. The vandalism is getting so bad that many of the delivery vehicles are barely recognizable as mail trucks, triggering concerns that laws regarding mailbox vandalism and mail theft are also being ignored.
Trader Joe’s threatened: More than 1,000 neighbors have signed a petition challenging a proposed senior housing project in North Oakland’s Rockridge district that would replace a popular College Avenue Trader Joe’s store.
Rockridge Neighbors for Sensible Housing are calling for a study to address their concerns about the eight-story luxury housing development proposed by Align Real Estate (visit rockridge.org online for details about the project). The Rockridge Business Association’s president, Devan Meneses, says losing Trader Joe’s would be a terrible blow to the Rockridge commercial corridor.
“It’s a staple of our community and a pillar of quality that not only our residents and neighbors rely upon but that also brings in people from outside Rockridge into our business district,” he said.
Meneses says no one debates the need for more senior housing but that a proposal already exists to convert the old Red Cross Blood Bank on Claremont Avenue into a senior community living center.
“The proposal of an additional senior community living center seems misplaced at this location,” says Meneses.
Book event: A popular New York City-based author will speak next week on May 7 at Montclair’s Great Good Place for Books store.
Ed Lin has won three Asian American literary awards and will read from his new crime novel “The Dead Can’t Make a Living.” Lin will be in conversation with longtime San Francisco counterculture personality V. Vale. The discussion will most likely touch on music, food and contemporary immigrant and Asian American politics. Find out more at bit.ly/4mRVFOl.
Ginny Prior can be reached at ginnyprior@hotmail.com and followed on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook and at ginnyprior.com.