The Bike is the Star at this Cafe
By MICHELLE QUINN – Bay Area Blog, New York Times
December 22, 2009
Bike culture in the Bay Area may have found its Algonquin. At the Actual Cafe in Oakland, which opened last week on San Pablo Avenue, people can ride their bikes into the cafe and hook them to the wall, the way they might have hitched their horses a century ago. The rail enclosing the bikes even looks like a hitching post.
Bicycle protection, without locks or chains. A whole new way of doing business and attracting business, all at one.
And it isn’t just about the bike. The rider is treated like royalty here — which is just the way it should be, its patrons believe.
There is an air pump if your bike needs a little air and repair tools to fix a flat. The owner, Sal Bednarz, said he hopes to bring a mechanic in on weekends. Cafe patrons who show a membership card in the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, a local bike advocacy organization, get a discount on the tea and pastries. [Yay!] The staff has made a machine called Sparkle Motion, a pedal-powered video juke box, inspired by old penny-arcade movie viewers.
Indoor parking for 20 bikes meant cutting into table space, something one reviewer on Yelp noted. While the city is installing three outdoor bike racks, the indoor bike parking at Actual is more than a gimmick. The Actual Cafe inhabits what was once an old bait and tackle store (fishing rods on the wall then) in a northwestern corner of Oakland known more for prostitution than for mochas.
Across the street, St. Columba Catholic Church posts a white cross in its small front lawn for every person killed violently in Oakland each year. Most have been killed across town in East Oakland, but the 98 crosses are a stark reminder that crime in Oakland goes far beyond bicycle theft.
Mr. Bednarz, 41, who most recently ran the technology department for Virgin Mobile, lives in the neighborhood and thought about making people feel comfortable about their latter-day horses, particularly since the cafe stays open until 10 on many nights. “San Pablo still has some negative connotations,” he said. “I’m not sure people want to lock their bikes around here.”
Mr. Bednarz said he didn’t know if he was the first to do indoor bike parking; “There’s probably someplace in Portland that does it,” he said. And that is the case, said Jeff Mapes, a political reporter at the Oregonian and author of “Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities.” Brew pubs in Portland have bike parking in outside patios and a new cafe across from a new bike mechanics school advertises indoor parking. (San Francisco has at least one bar with indoor parking).
Mr. Mapes reveled in the joys of parking indoors without the need of having to strip his bike of lights and paniers. “Everything you can do to reduce the hassle factor of bikes; to make it more like a car, the better,” Mr. Mapes said.
Actual Cafe
6334 San Pablo Avenue @ Alcatraz
Oakland, CA 94608
(510) 653-8586
Mon-Tue: 7AM-8PM
Wed-Fri: 7AM-10PM
Sat: 8AM-10PM
Sun: 8AM-8PM