16 hours in an Oakland dive bar 2%
By Azucena Rasilla1%
7/17/2026, 12:23:33 AM
Keywords: Oakland Restaurants And Bars
BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Availability Heuristic, and Attempt to Sell a Product or Service, with Halo Effect as the most egregious example at 8.7% saturation with 267 hits. Analysis detected 2,100 faulty-reasoning hits from 3,084 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 12.3% and a BS Rank of 2% (16,419 of 16,721 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 98.20% of the article peer group.
The intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Dimond Avenue is frenetic on a recent Monday in May.
The AC transit drivers compete with construction workers to see who can be the loudest.
A few feet away from the hissing air brakes, and jack hammers, Club 2101 is quiet.
Richard Perez is setting up stools and turning on the bar’s five TV screens.
Then he goes about filling the ice chest and prepping the garnish trays with fresh wedges of lime and lemon.
It’s 8:12 a.m. and he’s starting his shift at the neighborhood bar, one of a few in Oakland that open this early.
Perez, who was born and raised in Oakland, has a long history with the Duncan brothers, dating back to when the 19-year-old Perez worked at Sportmart — a shuttered sports store in San Leandro — with Danny.
He has been working in nightlife for close to two decades, and has been a bartender at 2101 and Laurel Lounge since 2018.
He pulls the Monday morning shift at 2101, and the closing one on Thursdays.
Then he manages Laurel Lounge on Fridays and bartends there on Sundays.
As Perez starts telling me about his time working at the old Club NV in San Francisco, an older gentleman in a black suit and a black shirt walks in and settles at the corner of the bar closest to the door.
He tells Perez his name is Jerry McPartland and that he’s looking for one of the regulars, to give him some paperwork.
McPartland tells me he was born and raised in Oakland, where he attended Saint Elizabeth for elementary school, then went to Westlake Junior High — now Westlake Middle School — and Oakland Tech.
“I got kicked out of Tech because I didn’t like school,” McPartland says.
But he got a gig as a paperboy for the Oakland Tribune.
Back then, he says, paperboys who sold the most subscriptions would get rewarded with a trip to Disneyland.
McPartland isn’t drinking a cocktail this morning — he asks for a Coca-Cola on ice in a tall glass — but he talks about his two favorite drinks.
The first one, the Adios Motherfucker, a strong cocktail that Perez says gets its bright blue hue from a citrus liqueur called Blue Curaçao, is a mix of vodka, rum, tequila, gin, and sweet and sour mix, with a splash of sprite.
The cocktail gets poured into a highball class and topped with a lemon wedge and a maraschino cherry.
McPartland’s other favorite is the much simpler Cuba Libre: white rum and lime juice topped off with Coca-Cola and a wedge of lime.
McPartland says he was once a regular at 2101 when he lived in the neighborhood, and he also used to frequent Kerry House on Piedmont Avenue, another bar that opens before noon — in this case, 11 a.m. — and has been in operation since 1939.
Perez moves closer to McPartland as he hands him the icy cold soda, to better hear his stories about Kerry House above the construction noise outside.
He finishes his drink and leaves, but not before telling Perez he might be back later.
One of the bar’s morning regulars walks in, 76-year-old Alton George Jr.
He grabs a stool in the middle of the bar and orders a Hennessy and Coke with a wedge of lemon.
George doesn’t like it with lime — he thinks it makes the drink too acidic — but Perez already knows that.
Perez says Mondays are a hit or miss.
Some Mondays are quiet, and sometimes by 11 a.m. there are already over two dozen people at the bar.
George is part of a devoted morning crew dubbed “The Breakfast Club.”
“The Breakfast Club is a bunch of older guys,” maybe 10 or so regulars, George says.
“We all sit around.
Sometimes we set up breakfast, and we all sit up here, eat, we talk bullshit, play pool, have a good time.
I go home, go to sleep, and do it all over again the next morning.”
George says he was born at the Presidio in San Francisco, when his father was stationed there.
But he was raised in Oakland and graduated from McClymonds High School.
He followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Army, where he served as a commissioned officer.
“I got into a little straight with a colonel,” George says.
“She didn’t like butter bars” — military slang for a second lieutenant, after the single gold bar on their uniform — “especially Black butter bars.
I had to deal with a lot of racism in the military.”
As George is talking, a handful of other folks make their way in.
Two, Noel Winn and Dios Almonte, are part of the Breakfast Club, and they sit at their usual seats at the end of the bar.
Right away, they’re served mimosas, alongside shots of tequila and Jack Daniels.
Another customer settles down at a high table against the wall, where he sips a large cup of coffee from the 7-Eleven as he reads the newspaper.
George says he used to come by the bar at night, but these days he comes in the mornings.
“It’s a homey place,” George says.
“Everybody knows your name.”
“It’s like the ‘Cheers’ of Oakland,” Perez says, referencing the 1980s hit TV show about a Boston bar and its cast of regulars.
Winn immediately begins to crack jokes, most too off-color to share here, shouting them down the bar to George.
Winn’s rambunctious laugh is contagious, and fills the bar.
Winn has been coming to the bar for over two decades, and he’s the Breakfast Club’s resident comedian.
“I started coming here when it had a leather door to keep the air from coming,” Winn says.
“Blockbuster was across the street.”
Like George, Winn was born and raised in Oakland, where he attended Frick Junior High, now Frick United Academy of Language, then Fremont High.
“Born at Samuel Merritt Hospital,” Winn says proudly.
“I was born at Merritt, too,” Perez says, adding that he went to attend private schools, including St.
Mary’s for elementary school.
The mention of St.
Mary’s is the perfect opportunity for Winn to crack a joke at Perez’ expense.
“Oh!
Private school.
We can’t talk to him no more,” Winn says, laughing.
Winn is hanging out with Dios Almonte, one of the youngest members of the Breakfast Club and the chef at the Puerto Rican restaurant La Perla.
(It used to be nearby, on Fruitvale Avenue, but moved to Castro Valley in 2024.)
Almonte says he started coming to the bar when it was under different ownership and the crowd was even older.
Still, the regulars embraced him right away.
Back then, he was one of the youngest customers.
“They would say, ‘Oh he’s now your uncle, and he’s your grandpa,’” Almonte says of the older customers, who treated him like family, a kind of social warmth that has carried on under the Duncans.
Almonte and Winn first met at Laurel Lounge and say they have been friends for 16 years.
Almonte, who had the day off, stopped by to catch up with Winn before heading home to cook for his family.
“He is a Dominican, cooking at a Puerto Rican restaurant, married to a Mexican, and he can make soul food,” Winn says of Almonte.
“This is the man right here.
He’s the man with the golden hand.”
As the two friends continue to chat, a UPS driver delivers a package — for a customer.
Perez says a few regulars like to get their packages delivered at the bar.
He quickly stashes the package in the back and gets back to pouring drinks.
Some ask for breakfast drinks like mimosas, while others go straight for shots of Jack Daniel’s or tequila.
Another regular, Steve Powell, puts on the jukebox’s first song of the day, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Texas Flood,” and just as Vaughan’s guitar solo builds, another Breakfast Club member walks in: 71-year-old Kurt Meyer.
Perez says Meyer had a health scare a few months ago; Perez is happy to see Meyer get back to his routine of hanging out with the crew.
By 11:30 a.m., the ice chest is in need of a refill and the bar starts to settle down.
There are about a dozen people inside, some playing pool, others chatting or reading the newspaper.
A few attentively watch the horse races now playing on the TV screens.
George is the first of the early morning crew to call it quits and catch the bus home.
Winn and Altamonte follow shortly after.
“All of these regulars are not just customers,” Perez says.
“They are friends and family.”
At around 2:30 p.m., someone plays “Can We Talk” by Tevin Campbell on the jukebox, and another female regular walks in.
She snags one of the high tables by the wall and props her laptop open.
She says her name is Nicole Wooden and that she’s just wrapping up her workday at the bar while she waits for her boyfriend to show up to celebrate his birthday.
“My friends here at the bar call me ‘Laptop,’” Wooden says.
“You’re going to see the same people here today.
It’s like your living room.”
Wooden shuts her laptop and moves to the bar when her boyfriend, Alonzo Jackson, shows up.
Just as the two are ordering drinks, the song #BDAY by Tank, featuring Chris Brown, Siya and Sage the Gemini, blasts from the speakers.
They tell me their love story began here at the bar five years ago.
When Wooden was in grad school she was a regular at Laurel Lounge, where she’d study in the middle of the day while Perez was bartending.
Around 2018, she began coming to 2101, choosing whether to go to Laurel or 2101 depending on who was bartending.
As she started coming more often to Club 2101, Wooden met Jackson here.
She says Jackson asked for her number but never called.
One day, years later, the two ran into each other at the bar again.
Wooden mustered some liquid courage and approached Jackson to ask why he had never reached out.
“He said that he called and I hung up on him,” Wooden says.
“I would never do that.”
Jackson then showed her the phone number he’d called — and it wasn’t hers.
The couple have been inseparable since.
“Everyboy in here sticks together,” Jackson says.
It sure looks that way.
I can tell whenever a regular comes in, because they’re greeted with hugs and kisses.
Wooden says they all support each other, whether someone needs help with their plumbing, their taxes, or going through a tough time.
As Wooden is talking, Jackson is showered with hugs, and friends are competing to buy him birthday drinks.
“As a woman, I feel safe here,” Wooden says.
“If for some reason I’m here without him, or, he’s coming later or I come later, or whatever, I feel protected.
As a woman, you don’t always feel that way when you’re out and about, especially drinking.”
Nearby, a man named Rene Contreras takes a seat.
I recognize him from earlier; he walked by the bar when Perez was arriving, just before 8 a.m., and he stopped by again later in the morning before heading to the doctor.
Now, he’s settling in to spend the afternoon chatting with Perez and his other friends, and eventually, to play some pool.
Folks sometimes mistake Contreras for Perez, he tells me, something that’s not helped by their similar taste in clothes.
One time, they showed up wearing the exact same outfit: black kicks, khaki shorts, and a black T-shirt.
“I almost turned around and went home to change,” Perez says.
“He was so happy to see that we were wearing the same thing.”
Contreras tells me he’s one of the regulars who gets his packages delivered to the bar.
“Everybody networks in here,” he says.
“Everybody has a profession you can utilize.”
In the early evening, Sylvia Dudley and Rebecca Robinson come in and sit by the door, where McPartland was perched earlier.
Within an hour, they’re joined by six other friends, mostly in their late 50s through their mid-60s.
Robinson says she used to take her dog to a groomer around the corner, and while she waited, she’d come by the bar for a beer.
She and Dudley met here.
“We look out for each other,” Robinson says.
“We take care of each other.
When somebody needs something, we are a phone call away.
I met my boyfriend here and now he’s a big part of all of this.”
The group, Dudley says, now travels and goes to concerts together.
In August, several of them will take a trip to Cabo San Lucas, in Mexico.
But they are more than just a band of adventurers.
A few years ago, Dudley says, she was diagnosed with cancer.
Throughout her treatment and recovery, the group was there for her.
“I gave the battle to the Lord, but these ladies and these men were my other family,” she says.
“When she kicked the cancer bucket, we held a big party for her, there was pink everywhere,” Robinson recalls.
“I don’t have family in the area.
But this is my family.”
The ladies also love Perez and plan their visits around his shifts.
By 6 p.m. he’s getting ready to start wrapping up his shift, but not before some impromptu dancing with his customers, and some birthday hugs to celebrate Jackson.
In between Perez’s cleaning up and dancing, Jules Guerra comes in to take over for the night shift.
By the time Perez takes off, most of the dozen or so people left in the bar are either playing pool or watching the San Antonio Spurs play the Minnesota Timberwolves in game one of the Western Conference semifinals.
Guerra, the night shift bartender, is still refilling the ice chest when he gets into conversation with his regulars.
He’s wearing a black Oakland Raiders hoodie dating back to before the football team left Oakland for Las Vegas in 2020.
The Oakland born and raised Guerra is still loyal to his old home team.
Guerra says he’s been a bartender at 2101 and the Laurel Lounge for five years.
Unsurprisingly, he also goes way back with the Duncan brothers, the bar’s owners.
Guerra went to Saint Joseph’s High School in Alameda with both of them.
Guerra says his shifts don’t feel like work, that he loves the great music on the jukebox and hearing stories from the elders who come by.
“Oakland is an influential city so you have old-timers who are Bay Area history,” he says.
“Sometimes, the old-timers come to be seen.”
Bartending isn’t Guerra’s only job.
He also runs a tax business nearby where he spends much of the day behind a desk and in front of a computer.
The bartending gig is a respite.
Guerra says he’s also a husband, and a father to daughters.
That mention catches the ear of Gregory Pierre, who is sitting at the bar watching the Spurs beat the Timberwolves.
“Daughters are the best,” Pierre tells Guerra, before complaining about how much his daughter’s recent wedding cost.
Like Perez, Guerra knows the ins and outs of what the bar’s customers like to drink.
He says that in the morning, well spirits like gin and vodka and American beers like Budweiser keep the bar going.
At night, he says, the heavy hitters are name brand spirits such as Tito’s and Hangar One vodka, Irish whiskeys such as Jameson and Tullamore Dew, Cazadores Reposado tequila, and the crowd favorite — Hennessy.
“There comes a point when you try Tullamore, and you damn near forget that Jameson exists,” Guerra says.
Wooden and Jackson begin making their way to the exit, hugging and kissing friends as they walk by.
Wooden says she’s organized a birthday party for Jackson with the regulars for the following day.
“Happy birthday, big bro,” Guerra tells Jackson from behind the bar.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.
I’m going to pull up around 4 o’clock.”
By 9 p.m. the street noise has quieted down.
The construction crew is long gone, and fewer cars are driving by.
Soon the petrichor from a short drizzle wafts in the bar, signaling that it won’t be long before it begins to rain.
“We are the last honest pour,” Guerra says.
One of the final customers to arrive is a friend of Guerra’s and a fellow tax consultant, Alesia White.
She sits where Pierre had been watching the San Antonio Spurs play the Minnesota Timberwolves hours earlier to be able to chat with Guerra.
Only a handful of people remain.
One couple is passionately kissing near the jukebox, so engaged they’ve forgotten to play any music; two people are still playing pool; and someone approaches the bar and chats with Guerra about the challenges of taking care of his grandmother.
Guerra listens attentively as the young man tells a story about his grandmother who moved to Oakland from Louisiana in the 1930s, during the Great Migration.
The man is visibly grieving her death as he tells Guerra, and the rest of us sitting nearby at the bar, how he would take care of her when he was a teenager.
He says he’d ride the 57 bus with her to accompany her to doctor’s appointments.
More than a few people get teary-eyed right along with him.
An older gentleman wearing a white shirt walks in and orders a Hennessy shot.
He pays with cash and leaves a few dollars as a tip for Guerra, then turns around and hands some cash to another customer to pick out some music from the jukebox.
She chooses tracks by Jay-Z from the late 1990s.
The man strikes up a conversation with Guerra and White, Guerra’s friend.
The man is lamenting his marital problems and complaining about filing his taxes.
White and Guerra offer up some advice and mention their tax consulting business.
The man is thrilled to have made this connection.
As Contreras said earlier, everybody who comes to the bar seems to find the help or expertise they need.
The clock on the wall is 15 minutes ahead.
“It’s bar time,” Guerra says, “to help people head where they need to go.”
“Last call,” he says at 11:30 p.m., but there are no takers.
The conversations will carry them through to closing time.
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