what: classical CD shop and cafe
where: Bancroft and Dana
I’ve written before about the sometimes bizarre musical selections you can hear in various cafes around Berkeley. Cafe Saint-Honore may have their Edith Piaf and flute concertos, but as far as music goes, The Musical Offering gets top billing. According to their website, they very well may be the last all-classical CD store in the United States. Given the way physical music stores are failing in the wake of Amazon, iTunes, and BitTorrent, it’s impressive that The Musical Offering has managed to survive. Their proximity to the UC Berkeley campus, with its highbrow, highminded professoriate, undoubtedly has something to do with this. Not only are they an excellent music store – they specialize in early music, something I’ve come to appreciate thanks to a flute teacher who introduced me to the baroque flute – they are also a downright lovely coffee shop. As I mentioned in my Amanda’s post, it’s clear that the successful businesses here really know their clientele. Obviously combining CDs and coffee isn’t a totally novel concept – after all, big retailers like Barnes and Noble and Borders figured it out – but the two in combination here are exquisite. The food matches the music in taste and class (and sometimes, alas, in price). I’m a big fan of the quiche in particular. Professors love to come here – I’ve known some to hold office hours here, even. The cafe is appropriately themed and decorated in accordance with its classical connections and offers fancier dinner specials when there are evening performances on campus. It’s not somewhere I’d go on a regular basis (Cafe Saint-Honore is still my favored cafe hangout) but it’s definitely worth your while.
