Four years ago, a rent hike forced Luka’s Taproom and Lounge, the “eternally Oakland” spot that paved the way for a generation of restaurants, to shutter — in some ways a victim of its own success in redefining Oakland’s dining scene. The first week of July, diners packed into Bar Skula, a spiritual successor, to eat freshly shucked oysters and sip on gin and tonics in a dining room overlooking Lake Merritt.
Bar Skula, at 542 Grand Ave., is a reincarnation of Luka’s from original co-owner Rick Mitchell. Luka’s, which closed in 2022 after operating for 17 years, was part of a wave of Oakland restaurants and bars, including Brown Sugar Kitchen and Daytrip, that shut down in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bar Skula joins a number of recent revivals in the Oakland bar scene, including neighborhood dive bar The Lodge, sports bar the Oakland Athletic Club, and queer bar There/There, which filled the void left by Friends and Family. “Times have been tough and times continue to be tough, but people who are in the industry, who love the industry, want to stay in the industry,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell and his wife, Maria Alderete, transformed the former Oakland Hofbrau into Luka’s, a nightlife complex with a dance floor and restaurant, in 2004. Luka’s “felt eternally Oakland,” food writer John Birdsall wrote in 2022, crediting it with helping to define the city “as a place where a restaurant with ‘serious’ culinary aspirations — brined pork chops and fresh hebi off the grill — could thrive.”…