The owner of the popular Northside food and snack shop Zak\u2019s Snacks, Jamal Fares, is retiring from the shop Friday and passing the reins to new ownership.<\/p>\n
Named after his son Zakaria, Fares founded Zak\u2019s Snacks in 2011 and has operated it since. The small food shop, nestled at 1879 Euclid Ave., is frequented by students and locals for its mix of homemade food offerings.<\/p>\n
Fares said the shop will be transferred to new ownership early next week.<\/p>\n
After years behind his counter, Fares says his retirement plans include rest, visiting family and doing things he\u2019s \u201cput on hold for a long time.\u201d Looking back at his time on Northside, he\u2019s honored to have made people \u201cfrom all over the world\u201d happy through his service.<\/p>\n
During the 40-plus years he\u2019s been around UC Berkeley\u2019s campus, Fares has opened and operated multiple businesses on Euclid Avenue. These include Hummingbird Cafe, which he opened and operated from 1998 to 2014, and smoothie shop Banana Sam\u2019s, which he opened in 2005 and closed in 2015.<\/p>\n
Fares said Zak\u2019s Snacks does not \u201ccut corners\u201d on the quality of the food he serves, which he believes has earned his shop a \u201cgood reputation\u201d among students. He believes in providing healthy food options over junk alternatives because students \u201cneed to be cared for\u201d as \u201cthe future for this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fares said each of his regulars have different favorites on the menu. Some people \u201cstick with something\u201d while others \u201crotate.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Fares\u2019 favorite things to serve at Zak\u2019s Snacks is its savory pie, which he said he frequently runs out of. He said the pies are something he is \u201cso proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zak\u2019s Snacks also sells wraps, flatbreads, apple tarts, banana bread, pastas and more food items. Fares says they are all made on-site.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an honor for me to serve so many generations \u2026 the hardest decision for me is to leave campus,\u201d Fares said. \u201cHonestly, I\u2019m gonna miss it a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says when the shop changes hands next week it will likely close \u201cfor a few weeks, maybe a month\u201d for remodeling.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a great opportunity for me,\u201d Fares said. \u201cI leave campus in peace, with no regret, no guilt, nothing. I delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of the popular Northside food and snack shop Zak\u2019s Snacks, Jamal Fares, is retiring from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[181592,5295,164783,2424,181591,181589,5292,143,145,144,149,181588,181590],"class_list":["post-460575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-banana-sam","tag-euclid-avenue","tag-fares","tag-friday","tag-hummingbird-cafe","tag-jamal-fares","tag-northside","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-uc-berkeley","tag-zaks-snacks","tag-zakaria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460575","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=460575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}