Oakland News Now – Lake Chalet Seafood Bar & Grill Oakland Has Seafood Linguine On The Menu At 1520 Lakeside Drive – vlog by Zennie62 YouTube. OaklandNewsNow.com is the original blog post for this content.

Lake Chalet Seafood Bar & Grill Oakland Has Seafood Linguine On The Menu At 1520 Lakeside Drive

This photo was posted on Instagram by @eatwithkeara on Sunday. Its the awesome-looking new seafood linguine dish on the menu and that I must try, and you too.

The Lake Chalet is Oakland’s first major eatery on the shores of Lake Merritt. It was the result of a controversial and sadly racially divided $8 million contest pitting Dorothy King, the now late owner of Everett & Jones BBQ against the Park Chalet San Francisco Owners Lara and Gar Tripelli.

The competition in 2006 divided the Oakland City Council. Then Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown cast the deciding vote for Park Chalet to build an Oakland version of their San Francisco eatery.

Dorothy King Accused Mayor Brown Of Racism After The Vote

In this account over at Oakland Focus Blog and from The Oakland Tribune, Ms. King accused Brown of racism in the selection of Park Chalet Group:

Restaurateur: Brown pledged lease for favor
Mayor, who supported another eatery’s boathouse bid, denies quid pro quo agreement
By Heather MacDonald, STAFF WRITER – OAKLAND TRIBUNE

OAKLAND — The owner of Everett & Jones Barbeque said Friday that Mayor Jerry Brown promised her a lucrative lease for a new eatery at the Lake Merritt Boathouse if she defended him from charges of racism.

Through a spokesman, Brown, whose term expires Jan. 1, called the allegation “crazy” and denied the existence of a quid pro quo agreement.

Earlier this week, Brown broke a tie vote of the Oakland City Council in favor of the Beach Chalet Brewery and Restaurant in San Francisco, passing over the popular barbecue joint in Jack London Square.

“I was devastated,” Dorothy King said, adding she had no doubt that the decision was motivated by racism and politics.
Brown, running for state attorney general, declined to directly address King’s charges, directing questions to his spokesman, Gil Duran.

The $12 million renovation of the historic boathouse, paid for with funds from a bond measure approved by Oakland voters in 2002, should benefit a local business, King said.

“My restaurant is way better — and the fact that it’s not even an Oakland restaurant, well, that hurts the most,” King said.
At a news conference Friday, King said she went to see Brown in December after learning the deadline to submit aproposal for the new restaurant at the boathouse — the centerpiece of Oakland’s efforts to reshape Lake Merritt — had passed without her knowledge.

About the same time, some members of the African-American community publicly accused the mayor of failing to consult with them on important decisions and excluding black firms from lucrative city contracts.

According to King, who is African American, Duran presented her with a letter that praised Brown for helping open the Jack London Square restaurant and dismissed the accusations as “slander.” Duran asked her to sign it and send it to the Oakland Tribune, which had published an article detailing the discord, King said.

“I was shocked,” King said, adding that she signed it after being promised by Brown the lease on the boathouse would be hers. It was published Dec. 12.

Duran said King’s account of the meeting was entirely false. King never spoke with the mayor, and no promises were made, Duran said. The new boathouse restaurant was only mentioned in passing, he added.

“That is not the way this administration operates,” Duran said.

Lara and Gar Had A Bigger Pot Of Money To Invest Than Dorothy King, Said A Friend Of Mine

A friend of mine shared a take that I placed at Oakland Focus Blog:

I talked to a very good and well-placed friend of mine about why the Oakland City Council voted to give the right to create a restaurant to The Beach Chalet, a San Francisco Restaurant, versus any Oakland retauranteur.

“They (the Council) looked at the deal points and frankly, The Beach Chalet was a better deal.” My friend reported that the organzation which runs the very popular eatery on Ocean Beach came through with tenant improvements that were over $1 million more than, for example, Everett and Jones Restaurant.

For those of you who don’t understand what this means, $1 million in tenant improvements translates into a very nicely remodeled boathouse, sure to be a popular destination along the Lake.

As to the allegations that Mayor Jerry Brown’s aide Gil Duran tried to bribe Dorothy King of Everett and Jones, my friend said “Either one of them could be lying, given their track records.”

My take on this matter is that the City of Oakland should know how it wants the boathouse to look and how much in tenant improvements should be planned. Setting this “bar” gives Oakland businesses a chance to know the score. On top of that, the city should have worked on an “Oakland first” strategy and offered to provide assistance to a business that met the basic requirements.

Again, if Oakland’s not going to “Buy Oakland” why should I?

Later, I Wrote That The Lake Chalet Haters Should Just Get Over It

Then, I posted this at Oakland Focus Blog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMBPMlu2jas

Let’s go back three years to 2006, when San Francisco restaurateurs Lara and Gar Trupelli, known for the Beach Chalet and Park Chalet restaurants, were selected over the always good and very popular Everett & Jones Barbeque, in Jack London Square. The Oakland City Council was deadlocked four in favor of the Beach Chalet proposal and four against it.

Specifically, Nancy Nadel (Downtown-West Oakland), Oakland Councilmembers Larry Reid (Elmhurst-East Oakland), Desley Brooks (Eastmont-Seminary), and Jean Quan (Montclair-Laurel) against the Beach Chalet proposal. Then Oakland Council President Ignacio De La Fuente (Glenview-Fruitvale), Vice Mayor Jane Brunner (North Oakland), Councilmember Patricia Kernighan (Grand Lake-Chinatown) and then-Councilmember Henry Chang Jr. (At-Large) voted for it.

It was left to then-Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown to cast the tie-breaking vote, selecting the Beach Chalet proposal. Why? Because the Trupelli’s proposal called for them to spend $2 million of their own money to create the new eatery, a sum Ms. King could not match at the time (her proposal called for $1 million in spending.

The City of Oakland’s plan was to use $12 million to refurbish the boathouse; some councilmembers believed that expenditure should be coupled with “capacity building” an Oakland business, in this case, Everett and Jones.

The outcome caused King to charge that racism was the reason for the vote outcome, and that then-Mayor Brown promised to give her the lease if she would defend him from charges of racism; Brown vehemently denied King’s claim calling it “crazy”. Councilmemeber Reid also disagreed with King’s claim, stating that race was did not play a role in the vote outcome.

The controversy also helped to cause the petition drive that caused Ron Dellums to run for Mayor of Oakland. Because De La Fuente voted against King, it was believed by some that he would not be supportive of African American business interests. He lost to Dellums, who’s now Oakland’s mayor.

King was not notified of the competition

King said she learned about the restaurant competition after seeing it advertised at the boathouse and called Mayor Brown. The submission deadline had past, but the process was restarted to give her time to submit the appropriate documents and review her proposal. In all, 10 proposals were considered; the Trupelli approach won.

It’s over; enjoy the result.

It’s sad to learn that some councilmembers can’t even bring themselves to visit the Lake Chalet and congratulate Gar and Lara for the work they’ve done. It’s an incredible place with great food at the right price. We’ve always talked about increasing investment in Oakland, but when it happens, some of us seems to take pleasure in finding something wrong with the result.

If those councilmembers are so concerned with building the capacity of women and minority businesses in Oakland, they need to set up a program that does just that. But what’s happened historically is Oakland gives out loans – not grants – to such businesses then makes public examples of them when they can’t pay them back.

The City of Oakland needs to put its money and effort where its mouth is rather than pay lip-service to a problem that needs to be addressed and indeed should have been a long time ago.

In hindsight, the best plan was to combine both organizations into one effort and why that was not done is something to investigate just to close that chapter. Everett & Jones BBQ is the best and combined with the efficient business organization Lara and Gar put together at Lake Merritt would make a powerhouse place.

But on its own Lake Chalet has become an institution which gained national stature when the Golden State Warriors held their NBA Finals Parties there and ESPN produced its First Take Show there – for five years! I attended the events and here’s the video proof:

I Even Had My Own YouTube Meetup At Lake Chalet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og8O7ZbROFw

And Before That I Had A Livestream Show From Lake Chalet

So, in closing, I hope that gives you a kind of history of how Lake Chalet came to be, as well establish that its become a kind of cultural center of Oakland, where people hold parties and events. Let’s contain the virus so we can enjoy Lake Chalet to the fullest, again.

Stay tuned.

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