You know the feeling. You walk in and it doesn’t smell like fresh paint or sound like a curated playlist. It smells like smoke or 80-year-old floor wax, and somebody’s grandma recipe is on the menu. Oakland’s got fewer of these spots every year — Genova Deli gone in 2016, Mexicali Rose gone in 2018 after 91 years, Brown Sugar Kitchen gone in 2022. The ones still standing deserve your Saturday.
1. Lois the Pie Queen (Oakland) — 851 60th St.
Open since 1951 and often cited as the oldest Black-owned restaurant in California. The founder fed dockworkers up to 10,000 sandwiches a day in the 1940s shipyards before the restaurant even existed. Sweet potato pie, chicken and waffles, cash only. Her son runs it now.
2. Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon (Oakland) — 48 Webster St in Jack London Square.
Opened 1883 for $100, built from the timbers of an 1858 stern-wheeler. The floor’s been tilted since the 1906 earthquake and nobody fixed it. Jack London drank here. Never closed for Prohibition…