Rockridge Market Hall
Every autumn Market Hall takes one of the two wheels of crucolo that reach the United States, has a friar bless it, and cuts it open in the street. The 2024 wheel weighed 422 pounds.
Why go
The Oaklandside sent a reporter to swing the knife in 2024, the ninth year of the parade, and recorded what it takes: with both hands wrapped tight around the black handle, I drove the blade into the center of the 422-pound wheel.
Market Hall's retail director Juliana Uruburu coached the cut, with the warning you'll use muscles you didn't know you had.
2 Sara, Tony and Peter Wilson, New Zealanders who lived in the neighborhood, opened this in 1987 as the Bay Area's first European-style food hall. As at KQED's 2017 anniversary piece it ran nine businesses under one roof, among them Highwire Coffee Roasters, Hapuku Fish Shop, Marin Sun Farms Butcher Shop and Paul Marcus Wines.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever the cheese counter puts in front of you, because they will let you taste before you buy. Then fish from Hapuku and something from the butcher if you are cooking.
- Avoid: confusing this with Market Hall Foods on Fourth Street in West Berkeley, a sibling shop that announced its closing in 2024. This is the College Avenue original.
What locals & experts say
- KQED (Kim Westerman, October 2017): the Bay Area's
first European-style food hall is still its most complete and creatively curated.
1 - The Oaklandside (October 2024): the crucolo arrives as
one of two giant wheels
to reach the United States each year.2
Good to know
- Timing: a morning shop. The crucolo cut is an autumn event and it draws a crowd.
- Booking: walk-in.
- Getting there: College Avenue in Rockridge, minutes from Rockridge BART.
Verdict
should-visit — Every autumn Market Hall takes delivery of one of the two wheels of crucolo that reach the United States, parades it down College Avenue, has a Dominican friar bless it and then cuts it open in the street: 422 pounds in 2024, the ninth year they have done it. A cheese counter that goes to that trouble is worth planning a morning around, and the retail director has a name, Juliana Uruburu. Sara, Tony and Peter Wilson opened this in 1987 as the Bay Area's first European-style food hall and it still runs a fishmonger, a butcher and a coffee roaster under one roof. Short of must-visit because the tenant list we can source is nine years old.