M & H Market in Berkeley

I've shopped this market over many years. It's like a royalty among corner markets. Great inventory and selections, even in the produce area, good prices, other amenities on site, such as a good Deli section where they make your food to custom order, even an ATM that always works. And the folks working there have always been friendly and helpful with me.

Typical corner convenience store. Over priced. I do not like the fact that they do not mark the item with prices. I have been subjected to paying different prices depending on what or who you are. Several times I saw one person pay one price and I came right after to get charged something else. By the way always count your change here, they've come up short on me a couple of times

This place is the absolute pits. I had an encounter that felt very strongly like it was a theft/assault about to take place while the store's proprietor did absolutely nothing to intervene and defend me. Here's my account on Yelp: "I had to call the police because of a "gentleman" I encountered in this store. He was a well-groomed, muscular, black man in his 30s wearing a Berkeley sweatshirt. He started to make fun of my clothing for no apparent reason (I was wearing khakis and a sweatshirt, if that matters to the story at all.) I tried to ignore it for as long as I could. Finally, I turned around and said: "excuse me, why are you saying this?" He got very defensive. I'm a very passive individual and said "look, I'm going about my business peacefully, may I simply make my purchase and leave?" This was apparently the wrong answer because he became more irate and indignant. He repeated to me "whatcha gunna do about it?" while puffing out his chest as if to fight me. "Whatcha gunna do about it?" et cetera and so forth. The man who was near him and was an obvious indigent man said "hey, leave that guy alone. He's okay." (I had had polite small talk with this man outside who offered me a newspaper in return for a donation.) "Leave him alone. He's not bothering you. He's cool." The homeless man looked me square in the eye, all the while this guy was muttering obscenities at me, as to get a reaction, with a very sincere look on his face and said "I'm sorry about this. I'm so sorry about this." To editorialize, you shouldn't be scared necessarily of anyone who looks like he's homeless, needless to say. He was the kind soul in the situation saying "I'm so sorry about this" with a very sincere look on his face. Anyway, I left but not before telling the establishment's owner that I would never return because he did not intervene in the situation. I told him "hey, is that guy associated with you," and the guy said "no," and hollered at him "get out of here!" to no avail. It seemed like a rather half-hearted request really. Anyway, the next step was, since I still needed to buy a few things to go down the street to another shop. I asked the man behind the counter at the second shop if he was aware of the man in the Berkeley sweatshirt who had attempted to pick a fight and God knows what else. "OH YES!!! That man CRAZY! He CRAZY! I call police, they do nothing. They know about him. Everyone does. Bad, bad person. Stay away. He crazy!" I bought some things from this second man's shop and walked out. When I got outside, there was the guy peeing on the side of this man's building in broad daylight. I pretended not to see him and just kept walking down Adeline. As soon as I turned the corner, I ran home (which was only a few blocks away,) for fear the whole thing was a set-up for a robbery (I had my laptop and some cash on me.) Bottom-line: stay away from this establishment. There's nothing good going on here. This situation proved to me that the owner of the store must be involved with some bad people if he doesn't immediately tell a person like that, in no uncertain terms, to leave his store and leave it immediately. As stated, I guess he did, but it was very half-hearted and didn't sound like he was particularly bothered. It felt like a minor show so I'd buy my stuff. When I got home, I called the Berkeley police and said "look, I'm just trusting my gut on this and I had it confirmed by another store owner; this man is a major problem. He wasn't crazy (in the sense of being mentally ill,) he wasn't under the influence of anything as far as I can tell, he wasn't a thug out to prove that he was a man. He was violent. You could sense it. The instinctual reaction that overwhelmed me was "this guy's a psychopath with an agenda and I'm not staying around here long enough to find out what that agenda is." I hope no one does. The best way to ensure that is to stay away from this place."