Berkeley neighborhood · 24/7
North Berkeley and the Gourmet Ghetto: restaurant back doors on Shattuck, and hundred-year-old front doors on the streets behind them
Shattuck north of University with its bakeries, wine shops and dining rooms, quiet blocks of shingle and stucco houses one street back, and North Berkeley BART at the western edge.
15 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
The food businesses along Shattuck and Vine keep the commercial side of this district busy, and almost none of it is dramatic. A rear door onto the service alley that has to be shouldered to latch. An exit device on a dining room door that clicks but never catches its strike, which is a fire-code fault before it is anything else, priced at $269 to $725 per device. A front door cylinder that spins in its housing after ten years of turning with wet hands. Storefront hardware runs $139 to $435, and a business lockout at opening time, when the one key is with a cook who is not answering, is $119 to $219. Kitchens open early, so early calls are ordinary here rather than exceptional.
One street back the houses begin, and the hardware is older than anything on the avenue. Shingle and stucco houses from the 1900s and 1920s often still carry a mortise case in the door edge, sometimes with a modern pin cylinder fitted into it decades ago and sometimes not. Those cylinders rekey at $22 to $37 like any other when the case is sound; when the case has gummed up with old grease the fix is a cleaning and a spring rather than a new lock. Full lock replacement is $105 to $285 per door and is the answer only when the case is cracked or the maker is long gone. Around North Berkeley BART the calls turn automotive, with car lockouts at $89 to $159 in the station lots and on the residential streets where commuters park.
For a restaurant, say whether the door in question is the customer door, the alley door or the walk-in, and when the kitchen opens, so the visit lands before service. For a house, look at the door edge first: one long brass faceplate means a mortise case and the right parts ride along.
Most requested in North Berkeley & the Gourmet Ghetto
Nearby
One street over, the same van
FAQ
Asked before the call, answered here
How quickly does a van reach my part of Berkeley?+
Nineteen minutes is the average across the city. Downtown is usually 12, Southside and Telegraph 14, North Berkeley 15, Elmwood and West Berkeley 16, Thousand Oaks and Westbrae 18, Claremont 20. The Berkeley Hills run longer, around 26 minutes, because the roads above Grizzly Peak Blvd and Euclid Ave wind and the last stretch is often stairs. Albany is about 17, Kensington 21, El Cerrito 20, Emeryville 18 and Richmond Annex 24. Traffic on University Ave or a backed-up I-80 ramp can stretch any of these, and the window you are given on the call reflects conditions at that moment rather than an average.
What is included in the figure I agree to?+
Four things: the $89 service call, the labour, the parts that go into the door, and any evening or overnight hour. They are combined into one number before you say yes, which is why the service call never turns up separately at the end. The figure changes only if you ask for additional work once the technician is on site, such as rekeying the rest of the house after a lockout. That is quoted as its own line and started only after you agree to it.
Do nights, weekends and holidays cost more?+
Weekends and holidays are charged at ordinary hours. Arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $35, and arrival between midnight and 7am adds $70. Both are folded into the figure at the time you agree to it, so a $119 house lockout is $154 in the evening and $189 overnight, and the technician does not produce a different number at the door.
Will my lock be drilled?+
Only if you agree to it after picking has been tried. Residential deadbolts, apartment cylinders, mortise locks, most aluminum storefront hardware and most car doors open with picks, decoders, bypass tools or air wedges, and the hardware carries on working. Drilling becomes the option when a cylinder is already damaged, high-security, or seized from corrosion or a snapped key. In that case the technician explains what is wrong with the mechanism and what the replacement part costs, and the total stays at the figure agreed on the call.
What do I have to show before a door or a car is opened?+
For a house or apartment: photo ID showing the address, or ID plus a lease, a utility bill or addressed mail on your phone if the ID says somewhere else. For a car: ID plus registration or an insurance card, digital is fine. For a business or a lab: ID plus a lease, a business licence or confirmation from the owner or property manager. If none of that can be produced, the lock stays shut. This is the same check that protects your own door.
We rekey a student rental every August. How does that work?+
Rekeying repins the cylinders you already own so every old key stops turning, at $22 to $37 per cylinder with the $89 visit counted inside the total. For a shared house that usually means the front door, the unit door, the mailbox and any storage or bike-room lock keyed alike, so each incoming tenant carries one key. A building master, if you run one, keeps working. The receipt lists each cylinder by door, which is the form most landlords and property files want. Turnover weeks in August and January book up, so a few days of notice helps.
Can the original hardware in a brown-shingle or Craftsman house be saved?+
More often than people expect. Mortise and rim locks from the 1900s to the 1920s can be opened up, cleaned, re-sprung and rekeyed on site, and worn levers, followers and spindles are frequently replaceable. Interior doors with skeleton-key warded locks can be fitted with a working key rather than replaced. When a case is cracked or the parts genuinely no longer exist, a modern mortise body is sized to the existing pocket so the original plate, knob and door face are untouched. Which route applies is decided at the door, with the figure settled first either way.
Do you work in the BART garages and on hillside properties with gates and stairs?+
Yes to both. Car lockouts, key cutting and fob programming are done in the Downtown Berkeley and North Berkeley BART garages, in shop lots and on residential streets; say which level and roughly where the car sits when you call. For hillside addresses above Grizzly Peak or off Arlington Ave, mention the gate, the stair count and whether the garage is below the house, because it changes the arrival estimate and the tools brought up. It does not change the figure. There is no charge for stairs, gates or distance.
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
One call, one figure, agreed before the work starts
Calls answered 24/7 across Berkeley and the north East Bay. The $89 service call, the labour and the parts are inside the number you agree to, and nothing is added to it afterwards.