Oakland (Special to ZennieReport.com) – Lakeshore Cafe at 3257 Lakeshore Avenue near Lake Merritt, this Oakland vlogger’s most favorite place to have breakfast and interview Oaklanders, is sadly closing May 27th of this year. On the Instagram profile for the popular eatery was posted this message:
Dear Lakeshore Café Customers: Lakeshore Cafe will be permanently closing on Monday, May 27, 2024. Thank you for your patronage over the past 22 (yes, twenty-two!) years. We have been honored to be part of this community and incredibly grateful for your support throughout the years, and we want to assure you that this decision was not taken lightly. A new restaurant will be opening soon at this location. We hope that you make them feel as welcome as you have made us feel these past 2 decades. We wish them the best of luck! Best regards, David, Moe, and all the staff.
But, even though the place known for its large and yummy omelette dishes and bottomless mimosas will be replaced by another eatery, the outstanding question is why? The first answer is crime.
According to CrimeGrade.org, the website that tracks crimes in citites, the Lakeshore Business District currently has a crime grade of “F”. And the site reads:
The F grade means the rate of assault is much higher than the average US neighborhood. Lakeshore-Oakland is in the 5th percentile for safety, meaning 95% of neighborhoods are safer and 5% of neighborhoods are more dangerous.
The rate of assault in Lakeshore-Oakland is 9.477 per 1,000 residents during a standard year. People who live in Lakeshore-Oakland generally consider the south part of the neighborhood to be the safest for this type of crime.
Your chance of being a victim of assault in Lakeshore-Oakland may be as high as 1 in 61 in the southwest neighborhoods, or as low as 1 in 774 in the south part of the neighborhood.
And then there are incidents like the one that happened just five doors down from Lakeshore Cafe, where a car, a Lexus GS 350, crashed into True. It started with a retail theft at a Lululemon store in Napa, which led to a police chase that strangely ended when the gettaway car wound up crashing into True.
So crime has to be part of the decision to sell to give way to another business. As to what that will be called is anyone’s guess, though an entry on Reddit reads “new owner is Lucky Peach”. The Oakland Business License listing has only one concern listed for 3257 Lakeshore, and that’s the current restaurant.
Still, even with something replacing it, Lakeshore Cafe has a lot of special meaning for this vlogger. A number of my best, most enjoyable, and most impactful interviews were done at Lakeshore Cafe. I’ve been a regular there for a long time, with my visit streak cut by my obligation to keep my Mom company in Georgia. Here are some of those vlogs and interviews from Zennie62 YouTube Channel.
Eating with Oaklanders who were running for office like former KPIX Anchor Dana King, 2014 Oakland District Four City Council Candidate Annie Campbell Washington, or 2014 Oakland Mayoral Candidate Bryan Parker, or 2009 Oakland At-Large Candidate The Late Peggy Moore, or running into folks like Oakland Afro-American Ethnic Hall of Fame Founder Arif Khatib provided a unique look at what motivated people to go into politics, even if they didn’t win the election they were in.
I always held these talks at Lakeshore Cafe because it provided a fun atmosphere, and occasionally noisy. I wanted to see how candidates really were. A closed, quiet room doesn’t reveal the true nature of the person running for office. How they were when our talk was interrupted by a friend or fan of my work, or someone who knew the person I was interviewing said a lot about how likeable they were.
Plus, Lakeshore Cafe Owner and Friend Mohammed Haghighi got a kick out of meeting my guests.
Plus, the food was just dang good. I loved bringing people to Lakeshore Cafe who never ate there before. They were always happy with their meal – no exceptions.
Of all of the interviews I have conducted at Lakeshore Cafe, this one with the Bey Brothers was the most controversial. Here, they shed light on the murder of my friend, Oakland Post Reporter Chauncey Bailey in 2007.
Ali Saleem Bay
I will more than miss Lakeshore Cafe, I will always feel like a part of my history is forever in the walls of the room that the Cafe is and will be, even when it’s something else. It’s really a giant loss, its closing. A loss of a part of Oakland’s community soul.
But then that’s what eateries like Lakeshore Cafe really are: part of the soul of Oakland. It’s sad that we have a city government that has no economic development retention program to help them stay open. Without that, Oakland will become a souless revolving door of restaurants opening and closing, and again and again.
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