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

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 (EBALDC), which works to help low-income families and under-resourced communities. At the hotel, he planned to run Crave BBQ as a sort of incubator for young black entrepreneurs. He would train and employ local youth in food service, restaurant operation and management, so they could eventually run their own business one day. He was also working with non-profit Oakland Public Conservatory of Music to open a blues café at the hotel. But the ambitious multi-prong plan fell apart when he realized the money to make it happen wasn’t there.