There are two storefronts on Broadway at the outer edge of Temescal, one at 4001 and one at 4101, about a block apart. In May one of them went dark. In June the other one did. By the time the Sunday farmers market started selling persimmons, both had new names on them. Neither new tenant is a newcomer. One business moved over from Uptown, and the other spent four years winning North Oakland over before it had a kitchen of its own.
That pattern explains most of what changed in Temescal this year, and it also accounts for the one change that doesn't fit it.
Two closings, five weeks apart
Clove & Hoof at 4001 Broadway closed first. Oaklandside's Nosh found it shut during regular hours on May 8, and its June roundup counted it among May's closures. TrueBurger's Broadway location at 4101 followed on June 13, after 11 years there. The original TrueBurger on Grand Avenue is still open, Berkeley Eats reported.
So by early summer, the stretch of Broadway that runs into Temescal from the south had two empty restaurant spaces a block apart. The way they filled back up is the useful part.
4001 Broadway: a one-year stay with two businesses inside
Drink Thicc moved from its original Uptown location into the former Clove & Hoof space on Sept. 4. Owner Minni Sandhu told Nosh the shop would stay there for about a year while a flagship location is built. The smoothie shop usually rotates four smoothies a week, such as the "blue zone" with blue spirulina, bananas and pineapple. The bigger room let it add menu items and keep its core smoothies on the menu permanently.
Town Beef debuted at the same address the same day. It's a late-night French dip spot, and its menu was set to include locally sourced sandwiches on ACME sourdough rolls plus a vegan mushroom version.
So one storefront now covers two schedules: smoothies during the day and French dips late at night, for as long as the arrangement lasts. Drink Thicc's stay has an end date built in. That gives the neighborhood a year with both businesses on the corner, and probably another changeover at 4001 Broadway when Drink Thicc moves to its flagship.
4101 Broadway: a pop-up with a following
The former TrueBurger space has a longer backstory. Brack DeFries and Chris Morgan started Egg Pals as a breakfast sandwich pop-up more than four years ago. They served at farmers markets, cafes, wine bars and even ramen shops, and went from about 60 sandwiches a day to 200, with lines down the sidewalk, according to Oaklandside. Their first restaurant, Egg Palace, is going into 4101 Broadway. The name comes from customers who misheard "Egg Pals."
DeFries explained to Oaklandside why they picked this spot:
"It's like right next to Mother Tongue, where we do pop ups twice a month right now. In that neighborhood is where we've done probably like 70% of our pop ups. So we have a kind of built-in regular crowd already there, so it made total sense when it happened."
Mother Tongue Cafe & Bar is at 308 41st St. and lists daily hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The connection goes beyond being neighbors. Egg Palace's plan was to serve drip coffee and cold brew from Mother Tongue, along with teas from Molly's Refresher.
Here is what the owners described for the space, open five days a week:
- Mornings: the Egg Pal ($13), with bacon, egg, cheese, pickled onions and herby mayo; the Vegg Pal ($12) with seasonal vegetables; and the Pickle Pal ($12) with housemade pickles. They also planned a more budget-friendly sandwich, grain bowls, and weekend brunch with biscuits and gravy and two kinds of grits, one with shrimp and one with mushrooms.
- Evenings: after an afternoon break, a second service built around the Pal Burger, a thick, medium-rare beef patty on a potato roll, plus fried chicken sandwiches, salads, and bar snacks such as tater tots, a pimento cheese plate and marinated cucumbers.
- Drinks at both services: both owners tended bar for about 15 years, at places including Kronnerburger and Fish & Bird. The planned list included a frozen piña colada, a dirty martini, a carbonated margarita and a Pimm's cup.
The owners raised money for the remodel through a Kickstarter with a $50,000 goal, and they had passed the halfway mark by late August. In other words, the regulars who had been lining up at Mother Tongue helped pay for the new space before it had a menu board.
Neither Broadway space went to a business that was new to the neighborhood. A shop moving over from Uptown took one, and a crew that had already done most of its pop-ups within a block or two took the other.
Telegraph and Shattuck show the same pattern
Up the hill, the same thing shows up in two very different stories.
At 4935 Shattuck Ave., Upstairs reopened above Snail Bar on Sept. 4. It started with a soft period of Friday through Sunday service from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Upstairs had opened once before, roughly a year and a half earlier, and the city shut it down soon after. "After our long journey, we r so so so excited," the team wrote on Instagram, as quoted by Nosh, adding that they hoped "to be a new special addition to the community." The team that already belonged to the Snail Bar building waited out the gap and came back to the same address.
At 4869 Telegraph Ave., the space has held three restaurants this year. In July, the Korean gastropub Tuum replaced Hanshin Pocha. By early November, Nosh reported that Tuum had closed after a few months and the space had quickly become Oh Crab!, a seafood boil concept. Nosh called seafood boils, along with smashburgers, "the restaurant concept of the moment." Oh Crab! lists its hours as 4 to 11 p.m. daily.
Both turnovers happened fast, but they're different kinds of change. The Broadway spaces went to operators with a following that shows up wherever they set up. The Telegraph space turns over by concept: a new idea follows whatever is drawing crowds that season.
A send-off on the other edge
Temescal's southwest edge is also losing a long-running business this winter. Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack at 4006 Martin Luther King Jr. Way will serve its last day in Oakland on Dec. 20. It opened in 2017 with a name borrowed from the MacArthur BART station, and has served local craft beer, pizza, wings, salads and soft serve ever since. The business is still in the area. Its Bay Street location in Emeryville stays open, and a Hayward location is planned, Nosh reported.
That leaves five weekends, counting the last one, to get to the beer garden one more time.
The holiday stretch, built around what stays put
With this much turnover, the dates that stay fixed are a good way to plan the next month in the neighborhood:
- Every Sunday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Temescal farmers market runs year-round in the North Oakland DMV lot at 5300 Claremont Ave., next to Frog Park. Urban Village Farmers' Markets says its weekend markets stay open on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's weekends, though some vendors may take those days off.
- Saturday, Dec. 12, and Sunday, Dec. 13. Shop Oakland Weekend, part of the citywide Joy to The Town campaign run by the City of Oakland, the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Visit Oakland, brings special retail offers across the city.
- Saturday, Dec. 19, 6 to 9 p.m. Christmas at the Cathedral, hosted by Beebe Memorial Cathedral, appears on the Temescal district's events calendar.
- Sunday, Dec. 20. Last day of service at Arthur Mac's on MLK.
A Sunday morning works well for seeing the whole pattern in one loop. Start at the market on Claremont, then head down to 41st Street, where Mother Tongue opens at 7 a.m. every day. Egg Palace's space at 4101 Broadway is next door, and Drink Thicc and Town Beef are a block down at 4001. Upstairs on Shattuck has been open on weekends since its Sept. 4 return.
Expect at least one more changeover at 4001 Broadway, when Drink Thicc's one-year stay runs out and it moves to its flagship.
I keep a close eye on how storefronts like these turn over, because it shapes what daily life feels like on a block. If you're curious how the changes along Broadway and Telegraph might matter for your own home, Michelle Kennedy is glad to talk it through over a coffee at the corner of your choice. Let's talk about your home. Schedule a personal consultation.
