The best commercial kitchen ever, mentoring great staff and the place is very clean and well…read moremaintained.

Kitchen@812 is a wonderful place to start to grow your food business. Waleska is tremendously…read morehelpful and knowledgeable in the steps to be taken to thrive and make it happen. Businesses that have left here have made it to store shelves and succeeded in many ways ! I am grateful to be a part of this program

I have already recommended her, and will again. This lady does everything with those kiddos and…read morethey truly love her. She has a quality daycare, you can relax when dropping off your children!

My son has been going to nickis daycare for the past 4 years. We love it. The kids are always…read moreplaying outside, there is always plenty of supervision and the kids have so much fun. I know that the kids there are In good hands and I definitely recommend nickis daycare.

SFEMS is a wonderful organization which was founded in 1976, almost fifty years ago. Since then,…read morethey've implemented a pay-what-you-can model, making early music education and entertainment accessible to all members of the community. We had the pleasure of attending the Musicians from Valley of the Moon Music Festival at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley this past weekend. We enjoyed the spirited performance by talented artists (including co-founders and directors of Valley of the Moon) on the fortepiano and gut strings of the violin and cello, allowing listeners to experience the music of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethovan in a captivating way. The sound was amazing in the church, every piece of music played that day mesmerizing. Beethoven's Seven Variations on "Bei Männern, welche Liebe Fühlen" based on Mozart's The Magic Flute, WoO (1801) was notably engaging and a great way to start the second half of the program. I appreciated my time here. SFEMS puts on some really great workshops and events for fans of early music. I especially look forward to the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition in June.

Attended an event for the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce that took place last week at the…read moreConcord Elk's Lodge new location on Clayton Road. The venue is large and spacious with lots of tables for sitting and several TVs on the wall (perfect for watching a heart-wrenching NBA finals game #6). There is a bar for adult-beverages (they didn't have any iced tea, but did have a variety of cocktails). Food was brought in from outside and was able to be served to our social group. Really liked the location of the Lodge but it did take me a minute to recognize it was inside the old Bank of America branch on Clayton Road.

I was initiated into this Lodge as a member this month. These are a really good group of people…read more They are very nice, they have a lot of good activities and provide very important services inside the community. If you want to be a part of something special, this is a good place to start.

Great church! Everyone makes you feel welcome. Incredible worship ministry, you can feel God's…read morepresence in this place. The only critic would be that the service is too long.4 hour service can be too much. Although they are very conscious and give free food at the end of the service.

Growing up in a Catholic environment and going to a pentecostal high school for four years gave me…read morethe opportunity to learn and appreciate both cultures. However, I will say that I do get anxious when preachers talk a lot or when the priest during mass takes longer than usual. There are very few pastors that will keep me engaged when they preach and without my being restless. The pastor at this church had me listening attentively. I was NOT bored at all. I enjoyed every minute of it and I live in San Francisco but this church is worth every mile traveled. Pastor Aparicio has the gift to preach. He engages his audience in a spiritual and peaceful manner. The musicians and the lead singer (young guy) have so much talent that they are a gem waiting to be discovered by a recording label. I know because my sister who is a Soprano singer with extensive background in music agreed with me when I showed her their youtube videos. My son, who is a 21 year-old, was also there and he too enjoyed the church service. The people there are very nice and welcoming! We had a great Sunday afternoon and when the service ended, we were invited to have lunch with them. Now, I am not the type of person who will write a review unless I am convinced it's worth sharing and writting about it. Iglesia de Cristo Sion is one special place to find inner peace and meet wonderful people. If you are reading this and you're on the fence about finding a new church, don't think twice; I know I would return in a NY minute!

CMCM held its Open House on Saturday, September 30th. The Media Center is the best kept secret in…read moretown. For over 10 years CMCM has been serving the community with 3 tv stations an editing lab open to the public, state of the art studio and now pod cast studio. The open house drew 100 people into the facility to view the new computers in the editing lab. I enjoyed meeting new people, greeting members/friends that I haven't seen since the pandemic. It was a good event with fresh, rolls, mini desserts and drinks. Thanks Media Center for bringing us together.

This is an extremely well run Community Access Media Center, I've been producing shows there for a…read morefew years and the facilities and training is fantastic. If you'd like to shhot video, edit, create stories, write scripts, edit video, create TV programs - they will help you make it happen. (this is such a great asset to the community, even if you don't want to produce a show, please donate - it's a big service on a shoe string budget :)

Bay Area Rescue Mission provides real value through the services they offer to the community. I…read morepersonally referred someone there, and they were very helpful, especially in assisting a woman in her 80s. The staff showed patience, respect, and genuine care. It's reassuring to see an organization that truly follows through and supports people when they need it most.

Review is for volunteering experience:…read more This year, my work team decided to volunteer at the Richmond Bay Area Rescue Mission (BARM). I did not know much about BARM, other than they do offer meals to the needy and are a Christian-faith organization. We had no idea what we'll be helping with on the day of arrival. Our entire group of 12 or so did have to pass a COVID Antigen test before entering. Our event turned out to be kitchen duties, like you read about in Kitchen Confidential or from cooking reality shows. Everyone was super friendly, but you feel the adrenalin of working hard in a commercial kitchen. You work as a team and you work safely, since you got hot surfaces, sharp objects, boiling liquids and occasionally wet floor everywhere. My main task was dishwasher, which brings back memories of my first job. Scrape, Rinse, Sanitize and dry! Those high-powered Hobart washing machines make cleanup a snap. The feel of the nozzle is great as it blasts away all food scraps. Wish I had these at home! My next task was helping cutting up some 30-50 pounds of chicken breast for a marinade. The chef was planning to make some coconut-curry soup so he occasionally dumped Five-Spice and Chili Sauce as we cut. Those Dexter Chef Knifes were super sharp and the blade was something like 10" to 12" long, like a short sword. I thought my home 6" Henckels Chef Knife was sharp but those Dexter knives were on a different level. At the end, I can show my blisters proudly. My other colleagues served food to customers, cooked, diced vegetables, cracked dozens of eggs, unloaded a delivery truck, and moved things to the freezers. They got some high-quality produce here from Costco, Sprouts, and Trader Joes, and some of it organic! Highly recommend considering BARM if you're interested in volunteering some time. Being in a commercial kitchen was also fun since you experience what its like to be part of the machine that cranks out food. Everyone had a role to play to make it possible to crank out 50-100 meals per shift.

Just attended the Opening Night Doclands at the Smith Rafael Theatre which runs May 10-14, thanks…read moreto a Yelp giveaway. If you are a film buff, I highly recommend this excellent documentary focused film festival in the deco Smith Rafael Movie Theater in San Rafael. It was my first time in this renovated theater. It's large for a theater of this era (they tend to be smaller) has three screens and has been nicely restored with interior painting and comfortable seating. Opening night featured a director talk after the film, which was an inspirational viewing of "Its only Life Afterall" about the Indigo Girls. It was a beautiful film with personal insights about the band, their origin story, their inner world and musical insecurities, their passions and social justice advocacy, and their struggles as queer women in the male dominated music industry. I highly recommend this film. I'm looking forward to seeing several other documentary films over the next few days, along with a director round table talk on Sunday. For the program schedule for Doclands: https://www.doclands.com/2023-program/ The hosts, California Film Institute ran a great opening night, with lots of energized volunteers and with staff at CFI talking to the audience about what a tough time it is right now for documentary films. We absolutely have to get out into theaters to have a community experience in support of this inspirational and insightful medium.

I renewed my membership this year knowing I probably wouldn't attend the festival. The unique…read moreselection of streaming movies have kept me sane for the past month...LOL. It's important to support independent filmmakers!