Famed chef Alice Waters didn’t expect a Sunday morning yard sale outside her Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley to draw much of a crowd.

But hundreds of people — some who started lining up at dawn and came from as far as Burlingame and Half Moon Bay — jumped at the chance to look through Waters' personal items: pottery, sea shells, candlesticks and even a wooden cheese wheel.

“I guess I was a little naive about it. I thought I could casually do this,” she said. “But my daughter put it on Instagram, and that was the end of that.”

Waters spent the morning signing posters and cookbooks, and talking about the origin of various items.

When someone brought her a Chez Panisse breakfast menu to sign she said, “It just makes me want to cry.” It was from when the restaurant tried operating from 7:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. "Needless to say, that was over in a week. It’s basically the breakfast we never served.”

This is what Waters says she likes about flea markets: everything has a backstory. “I want to resist buying new. I’d rather just find something that was made to last," she said.

Waters even stopped some people from buying items that were too close to her, like a first edition cookbook.

Keasley Jones helped organize the event and says the money raised will go towards Waters’ nonprofit, Edible Schoolyard.

And even though it was a big success, Waters says this was definitely a one time thing.