This edition of Oakland News has a lot of information for you.
First, if you've ever eaten at the North Oakland restaurant called Wood Tavern at 6317 College Avenue (with the best half-chicken in Oakland, if not the SF Bay Area), then you'll be able to picture it's new spring-off called "Southy."
Why that name? Because it's going to be right next door and south of The Wood Tavern. Set to open in about 10 days, Southy's going to cater to a younger crowd. There's going to be a sliding door to deliver take out orders, to which I suggest offering sliders to go with that slider!
Also, on the Oakland / College Avenue restaurant gossip beat, if you're wondering how some eateries are doing, I understand that one of them, once a large, popular place this blogger visited regularly, eventually fell off and started "floating" its liquor accounts.
Let's say you own a restaurant in Oakland. As I understand it, if you purchase beer, you have 30 days to pay the beer vendor for the volume you bought. That means you can make the money to pay the person. If you don't pay within 30 days you lose the account. What this one establishment - since closed, then split into two, and now is being remodeled - did was float liquor account after liquor account, allowing each one for beer to expire, then setting up new ones with other distributors. Eventually, it caught up to them.
Are there any restaurants taking up that practice now? My source says no. In fact, my source asserts that the Oakland Restaurant scene is hotter than ever, especially downtown and because of The Fox Theater.
The Fox sells out concerts, and so brings about 2,000 to 3,000 people downtown per show, many who eat before or after performances, keeping eateries like Flora across from the Fox and Luka's on Grand and Telegraph active, and creating enough of a market and word-of-mouth for other places like Lake Chalet on Lake Marritt, as well as old establishments like The Alley, which is both a bar and restaurant (great steaks).
Shifting Gears: Arizona Shooting Candlelight Vigil
The East Bay Young Democrats will hold a candlelight vigil for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the victims of the Arizona Shootings in front of Oakland City Hall, at Frank Ogawa Plaza from 5 PM to 6:30 PM on Wednesday, January 12th (that's tomorrow). The community co-sponsors listed are Cal Berkeley Democrats, Courage Campaign, CREDO Action, City of Alameda Democratic Club, East Bay Democracy For America, NWPC-AN, South County Young Democrats, and Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club.
Mayor Jean Quan Needs To Tweet More Often
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has just 1,377 followers on Twitter, and she's now over a week into the job of Mayor. One reason why she has a small following is that she doesn't sent out enough Tweets. At best it's once a day.
Mayor Quan's got to designate someone to tweet and also tweet herself. Quan has a wealth of material in Oakland's City Services and helpful numbers to call. Then there's the news from her own website. Then there' retweeting of Oakland and SF Bay Area news. Her tweet count needs to be ahead of her follower count by almost two, right now, it's about half.
She also needs to tweet when she's out visiting and helping people from time to time. Newark Mayor Cory Booker's become the Twitter master for tweeting where he's helped his residents dig out of the massive snow storms that plagued his city.
Get to tweeting, Jean!
Oakland Homicides: Six In 11 Days?
That Oakland has had six homicides in 11 days is an outrage. We need to have a zero-tolerance gun policy here and enforce it. If a person brandishes a gun for any reason other than on-property or personal self-defense, they go to jail. Period. Note, that's even before shooting the gun. We have to stop this crap.
Also, Oakland Police need to send a patrol car up Grand Avenue, then Euclid Avenue and then around Adams Point between the hours of 1 AM and 3 AM. As I was returning home in a cab from San Francisco International Airport on the Friday before New Year's Eve, I saw
young near-teenaged brothers walking around at that time, some without shirts on in the cold. Just what the heck were they doing out at that time of night and in Adams Point?
The sad fact is that a number of late-night crimes around the Lake have been committed by very young boys of color, many below 21 and 18 years of age. It's a reflection of Oakland's racial economic disparities; we have to get them off the habit of roaming streets and into clubs and other activities, and get jobs for their parents.
Al Davis And The Oakland Raiders
I'd wish the Oakland Raiders would just tell Cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha they just don't have the money to pay him rather than making it look like he wasn't a top performer in 2010. One of the reasons his contract is voided is that he had fewer interceptions than in 2009. Well, how many times was he thrown to? Nnamdi Asomugha's one of the league's top corners, so some teams just aren't going to throw his way.
But let's face it: if the Raiders could afford Asomugha, they'd have kept him.
With a league high of game blackouts and a hyper-high unemployment rate damaging attendance in 2010, the Raiders just don't have the money to afford him for 2011. That's the problem.
Stay tuned.
That's arguably the case with today's offering, "Damage Level." Tom Toles is gifted in the art of the communication; he creates images that convey compelling perspectives, well-suited to our hurried approach to modern life.
Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, former Democratic Campaign Manager, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.
