Commercial Real Estate
June 2019

Crave BBQ chef opens Grammie’s Down-Home Chicken & Seafood in Oakland

From Berkeleyside
Last year, the local food media was buzzing when news emerged that Rashad Armstead, the chef behind Oakland pop-up Crave BBQ, was opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant at the historic California Hotel in West Oakland. It was to be a permanent place for Armstead to serve his smoked meats and Southern-style sides that first got attention from his pop-ups at the Ashby flea market in Berkeley and at a gas station parking lot in West Oakland. But Armstead was also excited to partner with the hotel’s owner, non-profit East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation... View article
Media
November 2018

Bites: Truffle season is here, homebrew competition at Old Kan, Crave BBQ

From Berkeleyside
BBQ IS INN A historic hotel in West Oakland will soon become a new spot for blues and BBQ. The California Hotel once hosted blues and jazz greats back in the day, but it fell under hard times and disrepair over the decades. Since 2011, it has been under the management of the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), a nonprofit community development organization which has been working to bring the building, now a low-income housing and social services space, back to its former glory as a visual and performing arts hub. Late last... View article
Media
November 2018

Crave BBQ to Open in West Oakland’s California Hotel

From Oakland Magazine
In partnership with the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), Bay Area native chef Rashad Armstead announced today that he will move his restaurant, Crave BBQ, to the historic California Hotel and into the newly established California Hotel Live! Visual and Performing Arts Cultural Hub — a community gathering place outfitted for locals to be entertained, meet, and eat, located in West Oakland’s San Pablo Avenue Corridor neighborhood. “We are so pleased that Crave BBQ has found a home in West Oakland where Rashad and his family have such deep roots,” said EBALDC director... View article
Media
November 2018

A Black Cultural Corridor Takes Shape on Oakland’s San Pablo Avenue

From KQED
On a recent Sunday, in the parking lot behind the California Hotel on Oakland’s San Pablo Avenue, the Harvest Festival is bustling. Parents line up for plates of barbecue; kids decorate pumpkins in the pumpkin patch; and neighbors of all ages hang out while a DJ spins funk, soul and old school R&B. The scene is just one example of how longtime, mostly African-American West Oakland residents are revitalizing a formerly blighted stretch of San Pablo Avenue with the help of East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), one of Oakland’s largest affordable... View article
Media
October 2018

Oakland’s Historic California Hotel Will Soon Become a Barbeque Destination

From Eater San Francisco
West Oakland’s historic California Hotel is in the midst of a major revitalization project, and with it will come a new destination for barbecue. The space’s central, 1,800-square-foot restaurant will be Crave BBQ, which got its start in 2017 as a pop-up. Rashad Armstead grew a following for his slowly smoked meats and classic sides out of an old gas station in West Oakland — best known now as a common pop-up location for Horn Barbecue — but stopped after less than a year to start looking for a permanent brick-and-mortar. Prior to Crave, Armstead ran a private... View article