We're closing at 3 pm on Friday and heading down the street to the Best of the East Bay Party at the Oakland Museum of California. We'll have a booth with coffee, food, and the new videos from French Press Films. Come visit us!
Our Art Opening will be on the Second Friday this month.
Check out the Oakland Indie Awards at the Crucible this Friday! We're a finalist in the Greenie category and will be serving up free coffee at the event! See the ad on page 15 of the East Bay Express.
Diablo Dish - March '09 Oakland restaurant scene still not slowing down; and more.
BY JULIE MILLER DOWLING
What? The economy is bad? Seems the Oakland food scene hasn't heard that yet.
New restaurants are popping up faster than mushrooms and doing it in style. Sumo wrestlers and taiko drummers dazzled at Ozumo's opening, and the procession of royal restaurateurs planning openings in the new Jack London Square project continues undeterred. "A lot of the talent in San Francisco actually live in the Oakland area, and they want to be a part of the expanding dining scene here,” says Will Miller, vice president of leasing for developer Ellis Partners. "Despite the economy, the fundamental demographics are strong, and they’re looking at Oakland's long-term sustainable dining scene."
Rockridge's A'Cote is opening a new small plates restaurant in, you guessed it, Oakland. Although the Park Boulevard opening is months away, the concept is Pan-Latin, highlighting Mexican and Central and South American cuisine.
Meanwhile, Lake Chalet Seafood Bar and Grill plans a June opening on the top floor of the renovated, century-old Lake Merritt Boat House, where it will serve modern American cuisine. Also coming to Lake Merritt is Sidebar, a new gastropub serving upscale pub food, microbrews, and classic cocktails, which opened in early February. Also in February, Piedmont Avenue was slated to get Adesso, which will serve grilled panini and house-made salumi just two blocks from owner Jon Smulewitz's other eatery, Dopo. The downtown Oakland lunch crowd recently got Banyan 14, Thai and Vietnamese "street food" with a healthy California twist. The owners aim for a 100-percent green eatery, with a progressive recycling program, compostable packaging, natural meats, sustainable seafood, and organic veggies. Also emphasizing green business is Awaken Cafe on 14th, which will soon expand into a 3,500-square-foot lounge, with an organic wine and beer bar, coffee and teahouse, performance space, and expansive art gallery. Whew!
I hope you will enjoy this video, and feel free to post it to your own website or e-newsletter:
Also, there are just TWO days left to "Make the Pledge" to divert at least $100 of your holiday spending from out-of-town chains to local, indie businesses and artists. If all of our Express readers did so, it would have a $58.8 million dollar impact on our community, an estimated $8.75 million more than if that money went to chain stores. So, this holiday season, avoid the malls, avoid the crowds, and avoid being a part of Generica! Email "I Pledge" to eLerts@EastBayExpress.com, and you'll be automatically entered to win $1000 in local/indie gift certificates by the East Bay Express.
Since you're already online, here are some helpful links:
In other quarters, however, some entrepreneurs report an upswing in how Oakland customers are responding to efforts to make their businesses special.
"It's going awesome, actually," said Cortt Dunlap, who owns the Awaken Cafe, at 414 14th St. "Since we opened in April, we've found that especially downtown there's a vacuum for independent, community-minded, sustainable business."
Dunlap said he and the business's co-owners discussed the project for years, hitting up friends and family to invest and working hard to get a sense of what neighborhood regulars would want in a new cafe.
"Before we opened, we had a town-hall style meeting; we did conference calls; put out fliers," Dunlap said. "We asked, 'What do you want in a shop like this?'"
The answer, according to Dunlap, was a call to show off Oakland's thriving artistic community, and a desire for "green collar jobs." Dunlap responded with an artist's gallery that cycles monthly and a strict green-product regimen.
"Green materials are between 5 and 15 percent more expensive, but it's what people want these days," he said. Dunlap also said he took a page from San Francisco's Gratitude Cafe, offering friends and early customers a deal that makes them feel like surrogate partners in the enterprise.
"We said that if they buy a $1,000 gift certificate, we would give them a 25 percent value bonus on top of that," Dunlap said. "If they say, 'Hey, I can see spending a thousand bucks in this place over a long time,' it works for everybody. We keep track for them of what they spend and we know their face and their name. ... Everybody wants that 'Cheers' experience, you know?"
"Want to see a model for successful and rapid environmental action? Don't look to the federal government—check out your own town. Here, our list of the 50 communities that are leading the way. Does yours make the cut?"
San Francisco Magazine Calls Oakland the "Bay Area's Next Scene"
The cover story from this month's issue of San Francisco Magazine is all about the new cool in Oakland:
"Street by street, the city is coming into its urban own -- one nightclub, art gallery, renovated building, shop, restaurant, and condo at a time. As would-be San Francisco homeowners and businesses chafe at the cost of living and operating there, Oakland finds itself on a relentless drive toward a modern-day revitalization akin to what happened south of Market in the '90s, or the incursion of youthful hipness Brooklyn has seen in the past decade."
Awaken Cafe Joins the South of Broadway Oakland Merchants Association (SOBO)
The Awaken Cafe has joined the SOBO merchants association. SOBO is centered in the 300 block of 17th Street, between Franklin and Webster (and surrounding streets). SOBO is a sweet little tree-lined urban shopping district with fashion, clothing, food, cafes and personal services. We joined the SOBO association to connect with other entrepreneurial businesses in our neighborhood. We share their vision of growing downtown Oakland as a vibrant and fun arts, entertainment and retail district. SOBO also has street fairs in December and July which we are really looking forward to.
We've created a bumper sticker that we plan to pass out in downtown Oakland. We wanted to spread the word to our future customers, but we didn't want to hand out just another flyer. So we came up with the idea of combining an advertisement with a gift!
We've been following journalist Ryan Tate's excellent stories in the San Francisco Business Times on the business of restaurants and the revitalization of downtown Oakland.
I recently stumbled across a tongue-in-cheek posting he made on his blog "Covers" in response to the Tribune story about the Awaken Cafe. I wrote him a note introducing myself and telling him that I had evidence that the suspiciously named Friend of the Cafe Larry Biggie actually exists. Biggie must have noticed the link on the Awaken Cafe web site, and also wrote to him. Which prompted this posting from Tate.
We think the exchange is pretty funny and like Tate's style! Let us know what you think!
Oakland's New Mayor Envisions Oakland As a Green "Model City"
"It's important that in the concept of a Model City I would like to see Oakland take the lead in an era where the reality of global warming exists. I want Oakland to actually evolve a city based on the notions of environmental and ecological integrity and make Oakland a real leader in green technology. Thirty years out, I see Oakland as a green city that embraced alternative sources of energy and different ways of constructing and living with each other."
