I used to eat Black Muslim bread pretty often when I lived in Berkeley in the 70's & early 80's. I liked it. I used to get it at the N. Berkeley Safeway. I guess my point is that even if the proprietors got into some weird stuff, it was a legitimate business. For what it's worth. Greg Shenaut

It is not a legitimate business if it's primary purpose is to serve as a base out of which to manage and/or fund a criminal enterprise. If I made the best hamburgers in the whole of California, and I ran my local chapter of the KKK out of the same store, and I funded that organization through that business, then you would probably not consider it to be a legitimate business.

When I was in high school, there was a hotdog place down the street from my parents house in Oakland, and the owners would sell a variety of controlled substances from that store (it has since been shut down, although I'm not sure for what reason). I don't know if the primary purpose of the business was to sell hotdogs or to launder money for the 'behind the scenes' operation, but I would not consider it to be a legitimate business, no matter how good the hotdogs were.

It may be shocking, but people who make their living from legitimate business sometimes do terrible things. My comment wasn't trying to justify criminality, but the fact is, those bakeries baked pretty damn good bread and the proprietors deserved the money they got in return.

Greg Shenaut

Well they're more Genco Olive Oil company today than Mystic Pizza, that's for certain. And the health department has shut them down for things like rat feces in the bakery, dead rats on the roof, fish thawing in still water, and grease being dumped in a toilet. It may have been a legitimate business at one time, but I think that time has long gone by.

Folks, the shooter gunned down a reporter who was pursuing their shady business and gansterish activities and who said, when confessing, that he was a good soldier.

This isn't just about being a little crooked corner store.

//rat feces// Where I live now, in Yolo County, you can go to a web site and read a listing of all of the health department violations in county food establishments. What a disgusting experience! Until you read through a compendium like that, you just don't realize how many gross things happen at restaurants you thought you'd enjoyed eating at. But I guess my point is that if being tagged and/or shut down for critical health violations makes your business illegitimate, then there may not be as many legitimate food establishments around as you'd think.

@jmidsprinkla: Are you talking about Top Dog?

As for the bread: I rather liked the bread. I would go into the bakeries in Oakland. They were good and cheap -- the breadstuffs, that is.