Skip to main content You Might Also EnjoyWe make it easier! Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of HC delivered to your inbox. Do you have a way with words? Apply to write for Her Campus! Your mom was right. A great breakfast gives you the energy, nutrition and good feelings you need to make sure your day is an awesome one. When was Mom ever wrong? But sometimes you just don't have the time or inclination to make it yourself. You have things to do! That's why here at Bean Bag Cafe we serve the kinds of sweet or savory, spicy or soothing breakfast foods you really crave. Our coffee and tea drinks will kick your day in its metaphorical pants, and if you come back for lunch you'll fall helpless before our California-style sandwiches and burgers. Bean Bag Cafe has it all. In our opinion, breakfast gets short shrift in the food world. It's easy to throw together a few eggs and some toast and maybe a waffle and call it a day. At Bean Bag Cafe, we see breakfast as an opportunity to express our particular brand of delicious creativity!
Our omelets are eye-opening masterpieces of eggy artistry. Try the LaMancha, with grilled chicken, provolone, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and green onions. Our Fume, with smoked salmon, spinach and sour cream, will make your day. All our omelets can be served as scrambles, if that's how you roll. Food lovers from all over the Bay Area come to Bean Bag Cafe to experience our sweet and savory crepes. Our Basic Crepe starts with glazed onions and cheddar. From there you can launch yourself into a new universe of flavors. How about a Bangkok Crepe with tofu, veggies and peanut sauce? Or our Tuscany Crepe, which marries artichokes to portobello mushrooms in a bath of creamy sun-dried tomato sauce? Our sweet crepe creations all come with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Choose from our Saratofa, with apples, cheddar and brown sugar; our Citron, with strawberries and lemon mousse, or our magical Bean Bag, with orange espresso caramel sauce. Yes: orange espresso caramel sauce. You know you want it.
If you still don't believe that Bean Bag Cafe is everything that a cafe ought to be, come and pay us a visit. We'll have you converted into a true believer at the first mouthful. Store manageer Chintan Maniar assists a customer below a mural by local artist Eszter Clark at the Target Express store in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer opened the smaller store near the Cal campus which caters to the university community and is the third such store that Target has opened nationally. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer ... more Nichole Lucero organizes a display of Cal Bears merchandise at the Target Express store in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer opened the smaller store near the UC Berkeley campus which caters to the university community and is the third such store that Target has opened nationally. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer opened the smaller store near the UC ... more
UC Berkeley professor Phil Kaminsky shops in the electronics section at the Target Express store in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer opened the smaller store ... more UC Berkeley student Josh Kim shops for earbuds at the Target Express store in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer opened the smaller store near the Cal campus ... more Cal Bears merchandise is displayed at the Target Express store in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer opened the smaller store near the UC Berkeley campus which ... more UC Berkeley graduate students shop for socks at the Target Express store in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer opened the smaller store near the Cal campus which ... more Flip flops are displayed at the Target Express store in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer opened the smaller store near the Cal campus which caters to the ... more
A Target Express store is open for business at Shattuck Avenue and Allston Way in downtown Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Minneapolis-based big box retailer opened the smaller store near the ... more Or more specifically, I remember the Astor Place store in Lower Manhattan. For those of you not familar with the location, the store sits on some of the more valuable real estate for a big box in New York: right smack next to New York University. I attended the school in the mid- to late 1990s, and as any of those 50,000 NYU students will tell you, the place was a godsend. Despite New York’s reputation as a place where you can buy anything, Kmart was the only place within walking distance that a student could purchase toilet paper and a bean bag chair. Today, Kmart may be a shell of its former self, but at least the company was smart enough to hold on to the lease. Despite Internet shopping, mobile devices and whatever else is lurking around the corner, the store continues to pack in students.
Technology, it seems, can change a good many things in life, but location, location, location still reigns supreme in retail. The NYU Kmart came to mind when I recently toured the new TargetExpress near UC Berkeley. The 12,000-square-foot store is the smallest of Target’s 1,800 stores in the U.S., but it gets a good deal of business from college students. Hence the store’s highly specialized merchandise: ironing boards, hangers, wireless speakers, Beats headphones and, yes, ramen noodles. “TargetExpress is really designed for a quick-trip shopping experience that is still uniquely Target,” said Kisa Lew, team leader for the San Francisco market. “We really took the community in mind when we looked at the assortment. Because we have limited space, having the things that matter most to them is the most important.” In truth, Target, the country’s second largest retailer, is running out of places to expand. There are just not that many locations left in the United States where you can profitably build a big-box store, never mind a 12,000-square-foot TargetExpress in a dense neighborhood like downtown Berkeley.
The company now needs to rely on the Internet and local, small formats like TargetExpress and the CityTarget, designed for downtown office workers, to drive future sales, said Amy Koo, an analyst with Kantar Retail. In 2015, Target plans to open nine TargetExpress and CityTarget outlets in San Francisco, San Diego, St. Paul and Boston, compared with just six regular stores. Building big boxes that sell everything to everyone is no longer a viable option, Koo said. “Target is learning that it can no longer force a solution onto its customers,” she said. Changes in demographics and technology have undermined the original logic of the big box. Target, Kmart and Walmart came of age in the early 1960s during the height of the Baby Boom, when American families, aided by cars and highways, moved to the suburbs. They needed giant one-stop stores. But in the past decade, Americans have been moving back to cities. Throw in Amazon and express shipping, and fewer people are visiting the big-box store.
In fact, the growing popularity of e-commerce has displaced about 900 million square feet of retail real estate, or about 12 percent of shopping center space, according to a recent Morningstar report. If e-commerce continues to grow 8 percent a year, the need for additional retail space becomes “questionable” by 2033, the study said. That means stores with the best locations will become exponentially more valuable over the next 15 to 20 years. Locations like the TargetExpress in Berkeley cater to a specific demographic not afraid to spend money. Last year, the National Retail Federation predicted college-related spending would hit $48.4 billion in the weeks leading up to the new school year. Throughout its history, Target has courted college students with the belief that brand loyalty starts to take hold among 18-to-30-year-olds. In the late ’60s, in a bid to expand beyond traditional female customers, the Dayton department store in downtown Minneapolis (the predecessor to Target) hosted College Night, which brought 8,000 students for a ticketed four-floor event outside of regular business hours.
Today, Target hosts similar college shopping parties at midnight around back-to-school week, hiring buses to ferry students from and to campuses. In the summer of 2013, the company started Bullseye University, a big digital campaign to attract college students for the back-to-school shopping season. But nothing can replace the value of a physical store close to campus. TargetExpress may take up only 15 percent of the space of a regular big box, but it attracts a lot of repeat customers. Still, TargetExpress will never be able to replicate the sales generated by a big-box store. That’s why TargetExpress also needs to help boost online sales. Like many regular Target stores, TargetExpress has free Wi-Fi and a counter where shoppers can pick up online orders. Target is also exploring ways for stores to deliver products directly to customers. Times have certainly changed since my NYU days. But one thing remains true: Students want their ramen noodles, and they don’t want to walk far to get them.