Business
On any given day, close to 90 clients come to God’s Gym for personal training from 49-year-old Gary Shields. Some clients lift heavy weights and work on their massive physiques. Others have more modest routines, toning or rehabbing injuries. The two-story storefront on the corner of Broadway and 25th Street is painted jet black from top to bottom. Images of two posed, flexing bodybuilders fill the front windows. One is a silhouette of Shields in his prime. Centered between the bright, bold white words of the gym’s name, is a painting of a buff, black Jesus breaking free of chains.
What do the Chabot Space and Science Center, PGAdesign, Red Oak Realty, The Tip Top Bike Shop, Mr. Sparkle Window Washers, and Baja Taqueria have in common? They are all “green” businesses in Oakland.
The Nightcap is a series that features a favorite Oakland drinking establishment every Friday afternoon. This week, it’s Luka’s Taproom, which was one of the only bars in Uptown when it opened in 2004.
This December, a “pop-up” neighborhood is coming to Old Oakland: three downtown blocks of hip—albeit temporary—retail shops that showcase local designers, artists and goods…just in time for holiday shopping.
Community events and activities for the weekend of November 25 – 27. Got an event we didn’t know about? Please add it in the comments! Enjoy your Thanksgiving break!
Part pop-up restaurant, part real-life episode of Top Chef, College Avenue’s newest addition, Guest Chef, introduces an innovative business model that is new to the foodie scene: a new chef, cuisine, and menu every two weeks. And the clincher: anyone can apply to be a chef. Yes, even you.
INFOGRAPHIC: How much did Occupy Oakland cost the city? And was it worth it? Using information released by the City Administrator’s Office, city budget reports and our own reporting, Oakland North reporters have created an infographic that weighs the costs of Occupy Oakland.
Once a hub of automobile commerce, Broadway Auto Row is fast becoming a cultural enclave, thanks to the gentle prodding and financial investment of an eclectic group of gallerists, restaurateurs and niche shop owners who are mixing the old (and big) with the new (and small) to create a hybrid commercial corridor that keeps money flowing through the street from day to night and back again.
A new suite of rooms at Oakland Children’s Hospital is furnished with bright bedspreads, comfortable couches and chairs, kid-sized furniture, and a refrigerator stocked with snacks–all intended to give the families of profoundly ill or dying children an intimate and homelike surroundings within the hospital.