Business
Meet the next watering hole in our new bar series, The Nightcap: Room 389 opened last year on Grand Avenue near Lake Merritt, and its laid-back atmosphere and good music has helped its popularity steadily grow. The bar, says owner Benjamin Cukierman, is a place where neighbors “come hang out with their friends without having to yell over the music.”
At a yarn store at the corner of San Pablo and Alcatraz in North Oakland, a new exhibit will transport visitors to a remote corner of India. The shop, called A Verb for Keeping Warm, is kicking off its third art show today, titled “The Rabari People, Their Culture, and Their Textiles.”
A comedic troupe of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus clowns made the rounds through the fifth floor of Oakland Children’s Hospital yesterday, waddling room-to-room, clad in big floppy shoes, and bright red noses and oversized apparel presenting each child with a special bead, and an unorthodox prescription: smile.
Numi Tea imports rare and unique teas with real fruit, flowers and spices that no other companies are—most of their supplies come from China and India—and packages them in brightly colored boxes with artwork designed by cofounder Reem Rahim.
The First Friday art crowd packed the room, backing all the way up the stairs. This wasn’t a conventional event for one of Oakland’s downtown art walks. It was a youth fashion show, featuring local kids trained by Mario Benton, a San Francisco native who moved to East Oakland 16 years ago. “From childhood I wanted to be a fashion producer and have models,” Benton said. “That’s my first love.”
Last week, the Hyundai Motor Company presented Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland with a $100,000 grant to support the Children’s Oncology School Reintegration Program, which helps pediatric cancer survivors return to school following treatment.
Touted by locals as the center of the medical marijuana industry, Oakland seems a fitting host for the nation’s first marijuana outdoor street festival: the two-day International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, which opened its doors Saturday.
At Spokeland, anyone can learn how to fix their ride, with bike tutorial workshops designed for everyone from kids and families to women and transgendered people.
The International Maritime Center (IMC), which has been at the Port of Oakland in some form since 1964, provides a variety of services for seafarers while they are in port, such as shuttling them to local shopping centers, selling them discounted phone cards, or helping wire money home—anything to make their lives easier.