Blaze Pizza Berkeley
Thanks so much to the reader who let us know that Blaze Pizza’s “closed for the summer” door sign is no longer accurate, and that the Berkeley location is now marked permanently closed on both Yelp and the main Blaze website. The phone is also disconnected. This is surprising given the two-year-old, fast-casual pizzeria’s seemingly high popularity with students, but it looks like Blaze has indeed blazed on. Blaze Pizza was at 2400 Bancroft Way in Berkeley.
Chow Bishop Ranch
It’s hard not to think of Chow as the little restaurant that almost could. The long-time comfort food brand, once known for its small empire of welcoming restaurants in San Francisco (where Chow and Park Chow were favorites for decades) and later Oakland, Danville and Lafayette, closed one by one and sputtered to a “final” close in Lafayette in 2019. Then, back from the dead, Chow relaunched in late 2022 inside San Ramon’s food-forward Bishop Ranch complex, where it seemed to do well as a restaurant, bar and market. Now, even this latest iteration has taken its last breath. According to an Instagram closing announcement, “with your gracious support, we were almost there, but we just ran out of time.” Ciao, Chow. Perhaps we’ll see each other again? Chow Bishop Ranch is at 6000 Bollinger Canyon Rd., Suite 1100, in San Ramon, and will close for good after service on Sept. 10.
Touch of Soul (Moving)
Emeryville locals are well familiar with this San Pablo Avenue soul food eatery — the no-frills spot has been serving up fried chicken and fish plates for 12 years. Thanks to the E’ville Eye for sharing that as of last week, Touch of Soul has moved into the former Emeryville location of Monster Pho (now located in Oakland on 40th). Touch of Soul’s original location closed Aug. 25, but everyone is welcome to join the grand opening of their new, nearby, larger space on Sept. 2. Touch of Soul was at 4336 San Pablo Ave. in Emeryville. The eatery’s new address is 3900 Adeline St. in Emeryville.
