Livermore's HCCC Temple Serves Free Sacred Food to Thousands as Nearby Dublin Hindu Temple Recovers from Burglary
Two very different stories defined the Hindu community's recent news cycle in and around Livermore: the Shiva-Vishnu Temple at HCCC continued drawing thousands of devotees with one of the most beloved free food programs in American Hindu temple life, while just a few miles west, the Sri Panchamukha Hanuman Temple in Dublin was burglarized in the early hours of a Sunday morning, losing tens of thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry. Together they reflect both the deep vitality of the East Bay's Hindu institutions and the ongoing vulnerability those institutions face.
🪔 HCCC's Shiva-Vishnu Temple in Livermore Offers Free Sacred Food to All Who Enter
The Shiva-Vishnu Temple in Livermore — formally known as the Hindu Community and Cultural Center, or HCCC — is unusual among American Hindu temples in ways that go well beyond its size and age. On any given Saturday morning, thousands of devotees arrive, some in the Teslas and Range Rovers that have become a shorthand for the East Bay's affluent South Asian professional community, converging on shrines dedicated to Shiva, Ganesh, and other Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The temple is one of the oldest in the country, and writer Shoba Narayan, who first visited it in 1992 as a newlywed visiting family in Fremont, returned to profile it for SFGATE in April 2024, drawn back in part by its remarkable food program. After finishing prayers, devotees walk to a covered courtyard where two long tables are laid with freshly prepared dishes that follow recipes passed down across generations: a savory tamarind rice, a lentil-based sambar gravy, a spiced fried vadai shaped like a doughnut, and a cooling yogurt rice tempered with spices. Most of America's roughly 1,000 Hindu temples offer some form of sacred food, often a single sweet dish, but the HCCC is exceptional in that its food program is expansive, deeply embedded in its identity, and entirely free to anyone who passes through its doors. Narayan noted that the Queens Hindu temple in New York made the New York Times list of best restaurants but charges for its food, while the Livermore temple's program remains free — a point of pride and a genuine act of community service. [3]
🤝 Dublin's Sri Panchamukha Hanuman Temple Burglarized, $34,000 in Cash and Jewelry Stolen
The Sri Panchamukha Hanuman Temple in Dublin, California, was burglarized in the early hours of Sunday, September 7, 2025, according to Dublin Police Services. Approximately $34,000 in cash and jewelry were stolen at around 4:40 a.m. Sunday, while the temple was unoccupied. Dublin police confirmed the burglary on Monday, September 8, and stated that as of that time there was no evidence to indicate the crime was motivated by religious prejudice. The investigation remained active, with police declining to disclose further details about the circumstances of the break-in. Anyone with information about the incident was asked to contact Dublin Police Services at 925-833-6670. Dublin sits immediately west of Livermore in the Tri-Valley area, and the Sri Panchamukha Hanuman Temple serves Hindu families across the broader East Bay region. The theft of cash and sacred objects from a Hindu temple is a particularly painful type of crime for affected communities — religious items and offerings carry devotional significance that cannot be measured in monetary terms — and the investigation drew attention from Patch, which covers Dublin and lists Livermore among its nearby communities. The incident added to a pattern of temple burglaries that has prompted conversations across Bay Area Hindu organizations about physical security, surveillance, and community coordination with local law enforcement. [4]
Sources: [3] Hinduism Today · [4] Patch