Call Center Company in Concord, CA

CONCORD, CA — Concord renters, housing justice advocates and community organizations planned to rally Tuesday outside Concord City Hall before the start of Tuesday's City Council meeting.

Concord City Council members were expected to consider two amendments to the city's Residential Tenant Protection Program:

Demonstrators said the changes would exempt single-family homes and condos from eviction protections—putting up to 43 percent of Concord renters at risk—and raise the rent cap, which they said would make housing even more unaffordable. They planned to speak out against this perceived manipulation of council members and demand that city leaders stand with tenants.

The demonstrators accused the California Apartment Association and corporate landlords of woring to dismantle tenant protections adopted under an ordinance passed by Concord City Council in April 2024.

Under the Residential Tenant Protection Program that took effect April 19, 2024, “just cause” eviction protections increased, the city's rent registry expanded, and a rent stabilization program was established. The city's stated goal was to stabilize the community and minimize the displacement of residents while also allowing property owners to make a fair return on their investments.

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Demonstrators said, however, that a political action committee for the CAA sponsored a series of attack ads against elected officials who supported the original tenant protection ordinance. Demonstrators also alleged that mailers were sent to voters to put pressure on City Council members to weaken the ordinance.

"After a failed referendum effort, leadership from Vasona Management, Concord’s largest landlord, financed the campaign of Concord’s newest elected city council member: Pablo Benavente," demonstrators said Tuesday in a statement sent to members of the media. "Pablo Benavente is now leading the charge to weaken the rent stabilization and just cause ordinance."

If the Council decides to move forward with the draft ordinance, a second reading of the ordinance would be set for April 22. Thirty days after that, the amended ordinance would become effective.

In addition to the amendments, the City Council suspended the rent registry requirement for rented single-family homes and condominiums until further notice.

If you live east of the Caldecott Tunnel and love a great bagel, this one’s for you: The wildly popular, New York Times-heralded Boichik Bagels is expanding to the far East Bay for the first time, as first reported by the Bay Area Telegraph.

Founder and bagel wizard Emily Winston is opening what will be the Bay Area bagel empire’s 11th shop in Concord in late April or early May. The shop will be located in the busy Trader Joe’s-anchored Oak Grove Plaza at 785 Oak Grove Road, just on the border of Walnut Creek.

“People have been begging me to come to Walnut Creek forever,” Winston told SFGATE in a phone interview. “We’ve been looking around some. It’s not downtown [Walnut Creek] but it’s not that far away. I like that there’s a Trader Joe’s in there. Trader Joe’s customers are my customers too.”

Bagels at the Concord location will be baked on-site daily in an open kitchen. The menu will feature the same dozen-plus bagel types, including the unique Pumperthingle and Eggything bagels, plus schmears, sandwiches and beverages. Winston shared that she’s excited to join a burgeoning “foodie hub.” The Oak Grove Plaza shopping center recently welcomed 88 Bao Bao dumplings, and a pastry shop is forthcoming.

Boichik Bagels has been on an expansion tear these past few years, arriving in Santa Clara and Larkspur in 2023 and unveiling no fewer than three shops in San Francisco in 2024 in Lower Pacific Heights, the Financial District and Presidio Heights. Most recently, Winston debuted her first Los Angeles storefront in Los Feliz and shared with SFGATE that another Los Angeles location is slated to open this spring in downtown’s historic five-story Bradbury Building.

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The second you walk into the last Fuddruckers in California, the cavernous family burger restaurant located inside a nondescript Concord shopping center, nostalgia smacks you in the face.

Inside, there’s a Blue Bunny ice cream shop and an arcade with a Batman driving game. The walls are covered in bricks and corrugated metal. Checkered tablecloths grace the tables, some crowded with families of 10. In the center of the dining room is the build-your-own toppings bar that made this Texas-born chain “world famous” — and has kept devotees coming back to its East Bay location for decades.

The Fuddruckers chain began in 1980 in San Antonio. At its height, it had an estimated 500 locations worldwide. Today, there are only 54 restaurants left, the majority of which are owned by Nicholas Perkins of Black Titan Franchise Systems. In 2021, Perkins acquired the franchise from former owner Luby’s for an estimated $18.5 million, making him the first African American to have total ownership of a national burger business. Perkins recently unveiled a new Fuddruckers in Washington, D.C., and has plans to restore the chain to its glory, vowing in 2022 to expand its ghost kitchen footprint and open another 10 locations in malls and shopping centers around the country, including at the Shoppes at Carlsbad in San Diego County.

For now, though, the lone California Fuddruckers is located in the Willows Shopping Center, which houses a Benihana and Chik-fil-A and is a stone’s throw from the Veranda, Concord’s upscale outdoor shopping mall. The Veranda is known for its dramatic dancing fountain and a 50 Top Pizza restaurant. Typically, my family would grab a burger at Super Duper or NextLevel Burger there, followed by a scoop of Humphry Slocombe and a walk through Whole Foods, rather than visit the Willows. But on a recent Thursday evening, we went back in time and dined at Fuddruckers instead.

In my Gen X recollection, going to burger restaurants like Red Robin and Fuddruckers as a kid was a big step — it felt like graduating from McDonald’s. Not only was the burger bigger, and grilled to order, at least at Fuddruckers, but you also felt like a grown-up building it — even if all that meant for you was extra ketchup and a sliver of iceberg. My own 13-year-old never got into the concept, despite many trips to the Counter, the more recently founded build-your-own burger chain that’s also vanishing from the Bay Area. Too much fuss, I guess.

But he couldn’t shake the positive old-timey vibes inside Fuddruckers. He marveled at seeing the fresh patties before they hit the grill, through the glass of “Freddie’s Meat Shoppe”; the bakery churning out hand-rolled hamburger buns and cookies; and the long walk to the ordering counter, which was lined with actual bottles of Orange Crush.

Customizing your burger at Fuddruckers starts with the size of your patty: a third of a pound, half a pound, two-thirds of a pound and a full pound, which we saw families quarter and share. You can add one of five cheeses for an extra $1, and sauteed mushrooms, grilled onions or even an egg for $2. We found it utterly bizarre that Fuddruckers offers elk and ostrich burgers in addition to beef. We kept our orders simple — a one-third-pound beef burger for the kiddo and a half-pounder of the same for my husband and me to share.

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When our sizzling burgers came out, we grabbed our checkered-paper-lined plates and made our way to the toppings bar for lettuce, pickles, onions (weirdly, you have to ask for tomato slices; they are not in the toppings bar) and the chain’s famous jalapeño cheese sauce, which is a favorite for dipping the potato wedges that accompany Fuddruckers burgers.

The wedges left much to be desired — they had that fried-from-frozen quality — but the burgers hit the mark: thick and juicy, cooked to our specifications and held in place by a hefty, griddled bun with a hint of butter. It wasn’t the best burger I’ve ever had, but I liked that it was thick and filling for my smash-burger-weary heart, and cost just $8.95.

It’s one reason Tarienne Grover and her family have been coming to this location from their home in Solano County for the past 25 years. “We like it because we can come in with a big group for a birthday and everyone can get their food and sit down and you don’t have to worry about everyone ordering and waiting,” Grover said. “You get your food really fast. We like the toppings bar. They have good ice cream. It’s 50 cents with a kid’s meal.”

Concord franchisees Becke and George Almeida have been with Fuddruckers almost since the beginning. In 1984, George, a regular at the location, became the restaurant’s meat supplier. In 1990, Becke joined the ranks as manager, and not long after, the couple seized the opportunity to purchase the restaurant. Over time, they would own and operate five other locations in Northern California — in Fairfield, Walnut Creek, Emeryville, Dublin and Union City — and close them for a variety of reasons. In 2019, Almeida shuttered the Bay Street Emeryville shopping center location after 17 years due to rising costs, including labor, he told the E’ville Eye. That same year, despite its profitability, the Walnut Creek location went dark after more than two decades to make room for housing.

“Thank you Walnut Creek!” the sign posted on the door from the “Fuddrucker family” read. “May God bless this wonderful city always.”

The decline of Fuddruckers as a company actually started well before the pandemic, amid changing tastes and a growing preference for fast food restaurants. As early as 2017, Luby’s began closing low performing stores and by 2019 reported a loss of $7.5 million in a single fiscal quarter. In order to pay down debt, Luby’s offloaded most of its company-owned restaurants to franchisees. In 2020, Luby’s began liquidating its remaining holdings, and by 2021, Perkins, the D.C. businessman, acquired the remainder of the company-owned restaurants and the brand worldwide.

I reached out to the Almeidas about the Concord Fuddruckers for this story. As a burger-curious food editor, I had two questions: What is it like to own the last Fuddruckers in California? And why aren’t tomatoes included in the toppings bar? I didn't hear back from George Almeida until after SFGATE published this story. But he solved the tomato mystery for me. As it turns out, a lot of people were swiping their tomatoes. Pickles, too.

“We did this to prevent us from going broke,” he said via email, adding that you can get as much as you want upon request at the pickup counter. “I guess some folks believe our produce bar is a ‘free for all’ (which it kinda is within reason) but not meant to bring a sack and be a resource to feed the neighborhood.”

And in the most heartwarming words this editor has heard in a while, Almeida shared what Concord has meant to him and his family.

“We can only describe owning Fudds over the years as an absolute blessing,” he wrote. “It’s been a wild ride at times but would not trade it for the world. The comradery and relationships formed with our guys and gals throughout the years are priceless as well as timeless.”

Fuddruckers, 1975 Diamond Blvd., Suite E-260, Concord. Open daily, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

This story has been updated.

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April 11, 2025|Updated April 11, 2025 3:02 p.m.

Food Editor

Jessica Yadegaran is the food editor at SFGATE, where she has led a team of reporters since 2023. She has been covering the Bay Area food and dining scene for 17 years, previously as a reporter for Bay Area News Group, which includes the San Jose Mercury News. Before that, she spent time in various editorial roles at Seattle Magazine, the San Luis Obispo Tribune and the San Diego Union-Tribune. To share tips or comments, email her at [email protected].

ANTIOCH, CA — A new Chick-fil-A® restaurant is set to open soon in Antioch.

The Chick-fil-A at Lone Tree Way will officially open for business at 6:30 a.m. Thursday, April 3.

The restaurant is bringing 100 jobs to the community and will be run by owner-operator Evan Hawthorne—fulfilling a dream nearly eight years in the making. Hawthorne started his journey with Chick-fil-A as a team member at his father-in-law’s restaurant in Fremont and advanced to general manager. Now, he is thrilled to become the local owner-operator of the first Chick-fil-A in Antioch.

"Chick-fil-A holds a special place in my family’s heart, and I am forever grateful to my father-in-law for introducing me to the brand—it has truly changed my life," Hawthorne said.

To celebrate moo-ving into town, Hawthorne and his team will give one free entree to community members who visit the restaurant on opening day decked in their finest cow spots. Whether it’s a full-on cow suit or a simple cow-spotted accessory, all guests are encouraged to join the fun.

It is a way to celebrate the new food spot and Chick-fil-A's iconic cows seen in TV commercials and on billboards. Guests dressed in cow attire on opening day can redeem the free offer inside the restaurant or in the drive-thru.

Keeping the celebration going, Hawthorne plans to give back to the Antioch community by:

"As we open our doors in Antioch, my goal is to make a meaningful impact by bringing our community together through service and care," Hawthorne said. "I look forward to mentoring future generations while serving great food with genuine hospitality.”

Chick-fil-A at 5705 Lone Tree Way in Antioch will be open 6:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday for dine-in, drive-thru and carry-out. The restaurant is closed every Sunday.

Community members can stay up to date on Chick-fil-A Antioch via Facebook and Instagram.