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

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 catering business called Artistic Taste 7.

For Armstead, the California Hotel is a perfect fit. His family has deep roots in West Oakland — his great grandmother Sarah Rawls opened her first restaurant in the neighborhood and went on to operate several more Bay Area restaurants, pen a few cookbooks, and produce a cooking show. “She was Oprah before Oprah,” Armstead says. “I’m taking what she left us — that’s her legacy — and taking it where she would have wanted it to go.”