![\"Founders](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/edit_banter-54.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAt the counter, Devin, sporting a moustache and sharp undercut, is pouring a glass of wine for a gentleman in his seventies. Beyond him, a group of middle-aged hipsters sample dishes from pop-up duo Rucolina \u2014 delicate squash tartine and braised Wagyu with red wine jus.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Claire Sullivan and Devin Hohler opened Banter Wine in 2023. <\/p>\n
Nissa Brehmer<\/p>\n
El Cerrito isn\u2019t wine-bar central, and Banter isn\u2019t located on a street with much foot traffic. People don\u2019t just stumble in \u2014 they come deliberately. As Devin steps away to flip a record, hitting the fade perfectly, I sip a glass of a 2019 barrel-aged Stagiaire, a silky red made from carignan grapes. \u201cWe prefer wines that are natural but not \u2018natty\u2019,\u201d he explains, using the slang for the natural wine movement. Still organic, still low-intervention, but \u201cnothing too funky, nothing too out there\u201d. It\u2019s cleaner on the palate, and welcoming \u2014 just like the bar itself.<\/p>\n
Waste not, want not<\/p>\n
That evening, I head back to San Francisco for dinner. Local friends have pointed me towards Shuggie\u2019s, a Mission District favourite with a no-waste mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I walk in expecting the usual wine bar outfit \u2014 bare wooden chairs, dripping white candles, maybe a rustic oven glowing in the back. Instead, I\u2019m met with a carnival of colour. The dining room is drenched in green, with Hulk-hand-shaped seats, sculptural furniture and abstract wall art. The open-kitchen room glows in oranges and yellows. Everything is upcycled, vintage or DIY.<\/p>\n
Once known as Shuggie\u2019s Trash Pie, the restaurant began in 2022 as a pizza-only project. Last summer, it started offering a full menu built around food-waste reduction \u2014 paired with live jazz. It\u2019s Sunday, and tables are piled with tray pizzas and salads. There are vegan feta slices, finished with radish-top chimichurri, and an indulgent pepperoni, its edges extra crisped. Meanwhile, the \u2018green goddess\u2019 arrives skewered in a ceramic pot like flowers in a vase, garnished with gooseberries and blistered shishito peppers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the counter, Devin, sporting a moustache and sharp undercut, is pouring a glass of wine for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[107784,7,9,107785,8,11260,107786,82647,107781,107783,107782],"class_list":{"0":"post-239454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-berkeley-wine-bars","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-natural-wine","12":"tag-california-news","13":"tag-california-wine","14":"tag-natty-wine","15":"tag-natural-wine","16":"tag-natural-wine-america","17":"tag-oakland-wine-bars","18":"tag-san-fransisco-wine-bars"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}