I'm interested in forming an Oakland group-blog if anyone else is interested in joining. Oakland's in a pretty interesting spot these days and I'd like to help document it. My neighborhood, Temescal, is gentrifying pretty visibly. Uptown is becoming more vibrant all the time. Artists have been moving into West Oakland for years. We have a new mayor, a proposed new ballpark, and one incredibly bad budget problem. We have a new bridge that's going up, a huge new Kaiser complex going up, and transit-oriented development is going to be going up all over the place at the Fruitvale and MacArthur BART stations. What's going on in your neighborhood? What Oakland blogs do you read, if any? What would be good topics for future diaries?
So here's some notes from Temescal...
Here in Temescal, the new mac-and-cheese restaurant Homeroom on 40th St has been open for two weeks and looks packed all the time; it's not that big but every time I've driven past (it's right on the way to Piedmont Ave) it's wall-to-wall people inside and a line of people outside waiting for a table. I keep thinking I'll go when the crowds die down, but now I'm not sure they ever will. These guys got a buzz going so bad that people are driving over from SF, according to comments on Yelp if you can believe it. For mac and cheese! Good grief. I mean, I had some at Eat Real last summer; I know it's good, but all the way from SF? Sheesh. Please let the crowds die down in a week or two.
Another crowded new place is the Target way over at the other end of 40th near 580/80. This is in the "East Bay Bridge" shopping center (does anyone ever call it that? it's mostly "that group of shops down on 40th in Emeryville"). The store is technically in both Emeryville and Oakland and the sales-tax arrangement is such that Oakland will get one-third of the revenues. I went over today partly to get an umbrella and partly just to check it out, and it was jam-packed. The store has a huge parking lot but there was a backup just getting into the lot and I had to search a couple of rows for a parking space. Inside it was crazy crowded. It reminded me of Disneyland. Oakland is so starved for decent retail that a shiny new Target brings everyone and their brother out of the woodwork. I'd say this store is a frigging success.
The salient feature of both of these places: the stuff they're offering is really cheap but seem to be good values.
Within a week of Homeroom opening, somebody on the local Yahoo newsgroup was complaining about the parking problems. I thought, well, shit, of course there's going to be parking problems but would you rather not have a new inexpensive restaurant in the neighborhood? But parking is going to be more of a problem. The MacArthur BART station is going to start construction of a whole new apt/condo development on its parking lot, which is going to mean they're losing 100 parking spaces while the buildings are under construction and 150 when the buildings are done. I'm sure more people will try to park in this neighborhood; they've got some sort of plan for residential parking permits but who knows who will get one or how it'll work. The MacArthur BART developers are holding a community meeting next Wednesday; we'll see what they have to say, and if I can make it there I'll report back.
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