Bingo & Beers: A Night of FREE Fun at The New Parkway

WRITTEN BY: SANDWICH

If you’re looking for free fun, as in the free-space-in-the-middle-of-the-bingo-card fun, enjoy Bingo and Beer every Tuesday at The New Parkway Theater in uptown Oakland, conveniently located a few blocks north of 19th Street BART. Do something different. Go on a fun date. Yell Bingo. 

It’s pretty casual, bingo starts at 7:30 and goes until about 9pm. There is a brief break in the middle to get a refill on your beverages. I recommend getting there a little early to order food and choose your seat.

Upon arriving on the narrow mezzanine at the New Parkway, you may choose two bingo cards to play with. For the bingo pros – you can leave your bingo bag o’ daubers at home, these are vintage stitched, shuttered, slide-window bingo cards, many stamped with addresses of the churches from whence they came. They invoke nostalgia and giggles, as nearly all are personalized with clever and/or lewd graffiti. 

There’s “normal” bingo, blackout (cover the card) bingo, and after the break, things get wild with “vortex numbers” and “let’s keep playing until 9pm or everyone wins.” Most games have 3-5 winners, so your chances of winning are pretty good. Prizes include free movies or discounts at the cafe.  

The look of BINGO!!!!!

If you’ve never won at Bingo before, this is where you come to change that. Excitement builds as you wait for your last number to get called. When you win (and only when you win), YOU YELL – them’s the rules. If you don’t win, your card is probably cursed and you can switch it out for a new one. Laugh. Have fun. Get into it. IT’S BINGO. 

Learn More about Oakland’s New Parkway

The New Parkway is a community-minded independent cinema with two theaters and elevated rows of comfy sofas. Movies oscillate between summer blockbusters (Hi Barbie!), indies, documentaries, and cult classics. The cafe hosts a rotating full dinner menu of comfort food, with options for most dietary restrictions. I recommend the Kimchi fried rice, and yes, you can have food delivered to your seat in the theater. There’s also a full concession stand, and their popcorn spice condiment selection is pretty impressive. 

The beer and wine selection is all from within a 200 mile radius, and their creatively-flavored boozy and non-boozy slushies are so delicious it’s hard not to suck them down so fast as to induce a brain freeze in your chest cavity. They’re that good.

Contributing writer, Sandwich, and friends at Bingo & Beers at The New Parkway

Pro-Tip: Come for the FREE Bingo, stay for a beer and dinner – a full menu awaits!

The mezzanine overlooks the cafe and is a great use of space for local free fun. Other New Parkway free mezzanine nights include Karaoke, Team Trivia, Drinking and Dragons (D&D), Drink and Draw, and Speed Meeting. Wednesdays are Karma Cinema at the New Parkway – a pay-what-you-can movie night, where 20% of proceeds go to local nonprofits. Check their calendar.

The New Parkway is groovy. They partner with organizations that serve the Oakland community, and participate in profit-sharing/living wage, environmental, and sustainable practices. Ride your bike, show your helmet, get a $1 discount on movies.

I love that this is our community. And goddamn I love shouting BINGO.

Learn More About New Parkway and Bingos & Beers Here:

Where: The New Parkway Theater, 474 24th St, Oakland
How Much? Bingo = FREE (Beer = $)

IG/Twitter: @thenewparkway

Website:  https://www.thenewparkway.com/

note: all photos are courtesy of our the author, Sandwich.

The New Parkway is a beloved movie theater in Oakland