The location at 389 Grand Avenue of what was once my favorite Oakland, California hang, The Golden Bear, has been closed for what seems to be about a year now. It was most recently called "Dapper" which was an odd name for a bar to this blogger. It was a nice place that seemed to cater to one type of young, black, Hip Hop-oriented audience.
Dapper had a weird vibe: if you weren't exactly and narrowly from that group, you could feel uncomfortable. It's almost like how Cafe Van Kleef in downtown Oakland has changed. It seems to fit a young, white grunge artist crowd and if you're not part of that group, it can feel weird.
But, I must confess to some interestingly fun one-night stands out of Cafe Van Kleef. Being bald is fun, but I digress.
Someone has filed an application to reopen Dapper bar and some residents in Oakland's Adams Point neighborhood are upset about it. One person just didn't see the reason for a bar there. I disagree.
Bars in the Grand Lake area have always served as the community gathering point. It's the one place that, if done right, can bring together young and old, and black and white and everyone in between.
The last place that did that was The Golden Bear under the legendary Cal Rugby Assistant Coach Jerry Figone. The Golden Bear served as that community gathering place, and there was no moment that more demonstrated that then after the Loma Pierata Earthquake in 1989. I was there, er, here.
I was supposed to meet a friend / client at The Golden Bear that October 17, 1989 day when I was basking in the glow of a Cal Masters Degree in City Planning and all that came with it. But on that day, degrees didn't matter. I had finally arrived at the Golden Bear after a confusing trek to get their using public transit: AC Transit.
BART was disabled due to systems checks. The earth shook, but I didn't know what happened. Some blind lady with a radio on the bus said the Bay Bridge collapsed. Of course, everyone thought she meant the whole bridge.
When I arrived at The Golden Bear, the whole neighborhood was there. Friends who lost their cars to falling bricks from who knows where. People who couldn't get to San Francisco. People laughing and crying. It was a wild scene.
In the middle of it all was Jerry Figone. Talking to everyone. Giving free drinks to those who didn't have money and encouraging others who had money to buy drinks for folks if they wanted them. But mostly people talked. And the coolest memory I have of that day is people who normally don't talk to each other as was the group nature of The Golden Bear at times - Hey, it was a Cal Bar, which is why I went there - suddenly did.
That was a great moment. For me it ended in exactly the way I wanted it to, and given my sentence about Cafe Van Kleef, you can guess what that was, stilettos and all.
Bars can bring people together. The only place that does that now is The Alley on Grand Avenue. I don't know what the person or persons has planned for The Golden Bear space, but I hope whatever it is, they bend over backwards to make it inclusive of everyone. The Golden Bear under Jerry Figone did that and Oakland needs that.
Dapper had a weird vibe: if you weren't exactly and narrowly from that group, you could feel uncomfortable. It's almost like how Cafe Van Kleef in downtown Oakland has changed. It seems to fit a young, white grunge artist crowd and if you're not part of that group, it can feel weird.
But, I must confess to some interestingly fun one-night stands out of Cafe Van Kleef. Being bald is fun, but I digress.
Someone has filed an application to reopen Dapper bar and some residents in Oakland's Adams Point neighborhood are upset about it. One person just didn't see the reason for a bar there. I disagree.
Bars in the Grand Lake area have always served as the community gathering point. It's the one place that, if done right, can bring together young and old, and black and white and everyone in between.
The last place that did that was The Golden Bear under the legendary Cal Rugby Assistant Coach Jerry Figone. The Golden Bear served as that community gathering place, and there was no moment that more demonstrated that then after the Loma Pierata Earthquake in 1989. I was there, er, here.
I was supposed to meet a friend / client at The Golden Bear that October 17, 1989 day when I was basking in the glow of a Cal Masters Degree in City Planning and all that came with it. But on that day, degrees didn't matter. I had finally arrived at the Golden Bear after a confusing trek to get their using public transit: AC Transit.
BART was disabled due to systems checks. The earth shook, but I didn't know what happened. Some blind lady with a radio on the bus said the Bay Bridge collapsed. Of course, everyone thought she meant the whole bridge.
When I arrived at The Golden Bear, the whole neighborhood was there. Friends who lost their cars to falling bricks from who knows where. People who couldn't get to San Francisco. People laughing and crying. It was a wild scene.
In the middle of it all was Jerry Figone. Talking to everyone. Giving free drinks to those who didn't have money and encouraging others who had money to buy drinks for folks if they wanted them. But mostly people talked. And the coolest memory I have of that day is people who normally don't talk to each other as was the group nature of The Golden Bear at times - Hey, it was a Cal Bar, which is why I went there - suddenly did.
That was a great moment. For me it ended in exactly the way I wanted it to, and given my sentence about Cafe Van Kleef, you can guess what that was, stilettos and all.
Bars can bring people together. The only place that does that now is The Alley on Grand Avenue. I don't know what the person or persons has planned for The Golden Bear space, but I hope whatever it is, they bend over backwards to make it inclusive of everyone. The Golden Bear under Jerry Figone did that and Oakland needs that.
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