Attachment A
Responses to Supplemental Questions from City Council
• East Bay Café (Wendell Velilla): What are the things they are interested in doing to mitigate the opposition about not being willing to make any kind of additional financial investment?
Response from East Bay Café (Wendell Velilla):
“Previously, we could not make any investment due to the month-to-month nature of the lease. We could not amortize any investment without a long-term lease. We have submitted to the Health Department our plans to add hood and the inspector is currently reviewing if the equipment is appropriate and NSF approved and make kitchen investment that does NOT affect the historic nature of the Train Station building. The RFP specifically states that the roof of the building cannot be penetrated with a cooking hood. Specifically, we intend and have submitted plans for a new technology cooking hood that does not require venting through the roof. Additionally, once installed, we will acquire the appropriate NSF approved stove. We also submitted our plans to USD (Union Sanitary District) to add the right size greased trap based on our menu, and looking forward to hear from USD department so we can move forward with the permit from the city of Fremont building department. We will also upgrade the patio deck area furniture once it is safe to utilize and it has had structural failures. We also do have new tables and chairs inside the cafe and a new espresso machine and a new pastry display cooler for total of $15,000.00.”
• Menu and types of food offered by each vendor
Response from East Bay Café (Wendell Velilla):
“We serve a broad segment of our city, both traditional American breakfast as well as Island D-light a Filipino favorites. And we also have an easy grub sandwiches, fruits for train commuters. And we have coffees and teas etc. Kindly please see attached photos.”
Response from Zabihullah Akrami:
• More data on how many customers each vendor has including for the ~ 8 months the café was operated by Mr. Akrami versus now with East Bay Café
Response from East Bay Café (Wendell Velilla):
“We have an average of 30~40 transactions per day ( individual and or group) on weekdays. 40~55 transactions on weekends /Saturdays ( individual and or group). And we are looking forward to extending our hours and days of operation if there’s demands or if needed.”
Staff Summary:
Based on sales summary information (Point of Sale reports) provided by East Bay Café (Wendell Velilla), average transactions were approximately 528 per month in 2024, 394 per month in 2025, and 342 per month in 2026. This included credit card and cash transactions.
Based on sales summary information (Point of Sale reports) provided by Zabihulla Akrami, A total of 4,140 credit card transactions between May 7th and December 15th 2025, or an average of 567 per month.
Note: Number of sales transactions does not accurately depict number of patrons, as a sales transaction could represent 1 person or a family of 5 people, for example. For this reason, staff also included sales dollar figures in the staff report.
• More information about the hours and what would the real staffing structure look like. Will you be able to support the requested hours of operation from 7am-6pm?
Response from East Bay Café (Wendell Velilla):
“We are going to hire 5~6 staff just like what he had before the pandemic. Monday~Friday 1~2 staff and myself Wendell from first shift 7am to 1pm, second shift 3pm to 7pm 2 staff and Tim. Weekend 2 staff plus Wendell & Tim.”
• More information on the allegations of not paying employees minimum wage.
Staff Summary: Dirk Lorenz provided 1099 tax documents one of his employees who works at the Train Depot as well as bank records of payments made to the employee. It is unclear what hourly wage was paid to employees at the Train Depot as there are no written contracts that expressly state the hourly wage. City Staff have received conflicting information regarding hourly wage paid to employees. An employee of Dirk Lorenz’ informed City staff that she was not compensated for her employment but rather allowed to reside at the Train Depot in exchange for selling ACE tickets during the morning train commute hours. The same employee also informed City staff that other employees were paid $10 per hour, but City staff are not able to corroborate this information.