Gentrification is inherently a touchy subject in the Bay Area. Everyone calls everyone else a gentrifier all the time. Most people don’t actually know what gentrification is. So, first, let’s define it.  Gentrification: a process in which a poor area experiences an influx of middle-class or wealthy people who renovate

Folks hanging out on their porch and greeting friends, family and passersby, has long been part of the nature of West Oakland. A man whose house I regularly walk by on my way to work once called out to me, “How do you make a Mai Tai?” “You’ve got to

Step into a world of adventure with the San Francisco Beer Passport. There’s no better way to explore San Francisco than to literally drink it in. This passport is amazing! Each one contains 27 coupons to buy one beer, get a second beer FREE at 27 of the finest locally

As of June, West Oakland now has its own Farmers Market. We sat down with the creator of the market to learn more about what makes this one unique and what the future holds for this new event. Currently, the market features 45-50 vendors including local, seasonal growers, pasture-raised meats,

When it was established in 2006, the West Oakland maker space American Steel served as an art gallery and studio for large-scale industrial works, like giant Tesla coils and 20-foot tall metal sculptures. But when the place sold in 2016 for $29 million, many of the artists left because of

Oakland has some of Alameda County’s worst COVID-19 statistics, which makes it frustrating to hear that customers in an Oakland market are verbally and physically abusing employees when asked to mask up. The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story Monday about violent customer behavior at Community Foods Market, which reinstated

You may remember the December 2019 – January 2020 saga of Moms 4 Housing, where four single mothers experiencing homelessness occupied a West Oakland house that had long been uselessly sitting vacant. Their fight for good over greed drew international attention to the moral outrage that Oakland has four times

The tale of Daniel’s Caribbean Kitchen is the food love story we so desperately need. It seems each week brings another reason to mourn around the Bay Area. Losses of longstanding restaurants, bars, thrift stores, book shops, etc. come in rapid succession on either side of the bridge—one after another,

In a climate where words like ‘displacement,’ ‘gentrification,’ ‘homelessness,’ and ‘addiction’ populate our daily conversations, Punks with Lunch is a bright light in the dark night of Oakland’s current housing epidemic. In its third year, Punks with Lunch continues to operate on the simple mission of providing Oakland’s homeless community