When you’re scrubbing down tables in tight quarters, it’s easy to bump against a ledge. You know how it is: keys in your pocket, thigh-high tables. “Oh, so now you’re going to start with the alarm,” Mirza shouted.

Then, practically on cue, Moccia strolled out from under Ball Square Café’s black awning and casually clicked off his car alarm. And for the first time in years, the long-simmering feud was about to come to a boil.įuming, Mirza stormed outside of his restaurant. Mirza was convinced that the car alarm was just more of the same. What few people realized, though, was that Mirza and Moccia had simply taken their warfare underground, battling each other with subtler acts of sabotage. Dubbed “The Breakfast Wars” by bemused Somerville rubberneckers, Moccia and Mirza’s public scrapping reached its peak in 2010 when the two men ended up in a fistfight that sent Mirza to the emergency room, attracting the attention of the Globe and national media.Īfter the public brawl, the rivalry seemed to wane. With little more than a few slabs of sheetrock separating the two cafés, the move sparked a nearly decade-long feud marked by screaming matches and countless threats. Things had turned sour in 2007 when Mirza moved Sound Bites to a bigger space right next door, prompting Moccia to take over the vacated storefront and open Ball Square Café: a competing breakfast spot serving a copycat menu. It belonged to Mike Moccia, his landlord when Sound Bites was establishing its reputation as the go-to neighborhood joint in Ball Square.

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