The Athletic Club is back with a new team betting on Oakland

In sports, timing is everything. It’s how major league hitters square up a 100 mph fastball, NFL quarterbacks connect with their wide receivers on a wheel route, and NBA players execute a perfect pick-and-roll. Timing can also be crucial for a sports bar’s success. A deep playoff run for a local team could mean a huge, albeit brief, spike in revenues.

The Athletic Club, first opened in 2018 by Ezra Berman and Miles Palliser at the corner of Grand Avenue and Webster Street, has seen some of the best and worst times for Oakland sports. When it debuted, Oakland was still home to three major professional teams and the Uptown neighborhood was booming. “”

Then the Raiders left town at the end of 2019, and the Warriors crossed the Bay to play in the Chase Center, right before Covid arrived to gut the hospitality industry. Next, after an awkward, acrimonious dance with the city, the A’s decamped for Sacramento. The Athletic Club weathered all of these trials and lasted long enough to see the Roots move into the Coliseum, the Ballers come to Raimondi Park, and the Valkyries kick things off with the most successful inaugural season in the WNBA’s history, backed by a fierce fan base rooted in Oakland. Then, right after the Super Bowl, with a U.S.-cohosted World Cup on the horizon (including games at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Rosa), the Athletic Club shuttered. In 2025, Berman and Palliser launched a crowdfunding campaign to revamp The Athletic Club into a restaurant and bar in partnership with Parche and Jaji owners Paul Iglesias and Sophia Akbar, but the initiative fell short of its goal.

The new Oakland Athletic Club could seek partnerships with sports teams like the Ballers, who won the Pioneer League championship in 2025. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for The Oaklandside

For a city with few tried-and-true sports bars, it was a gut punch. Luckily, for East Bay sports fans, the free agent bar didn’t have to wait long for a new “team” to scoop it up off waivers.

Earlier in May, six Oakland residents announced their plans to reopen the bar. The idea was sparked by two regulars, Jesse and Fred, who recruited the other four. Jesse and Fred are not interested in being the public face or doing press for the bar, so they do not wish to be identified beyond their first names. The rest of the group includes the CEO and Creative Director of Oaklandish, Angela Tsay, Oaklandish COO Aaron Higgins, the former owner of Calavera and Chop Bar, Chris Pastena, and co-owner of Drexl and Sandbar, Adi Taylor. This six-person group has incorporated as OIAST, LLC., which stands for “Oakland is a Sports Town.”

Higgins and Tsay will handle the operations side of the business, including communications, marketing, infrastructure, and business development. Pastena will lead the bar’s new food operations, and Taylor will run the bar program.

“We think we have a stellar team to really give Oakland the sports bar and tavern, and more importantly, community gathering space that Oakland deserves,” Tsay said.

The group vowed to keep much of the bar the same. They’ll have the same sports bar energy, the screens, the supporter groups — but there will also be some changes.

The new team taking over The Athletic Club Oakland has renamed it Oakland Athletic Club and want to put The Town sports at the center. Credit: Amir Aziz/The Oaklandside

One of them is the name: instead of Athletic Club Oakland, it will now be Oakland Athletic Club.

“We definitely want to foreground Oakland,” Tsay said, “Oakland is a sports town, and we, the six founding partners, are all Oakland residents and taxpayers, and we are firmly committed to the revitalization of downtown Oakland, and think that having 59 Grand as Oakland Athletic Club is an important part of that Oakland downtown renaissance.”

Tsay said that the group recognized they needed an elevated food menu, so the bar would be a daily destination and gathering place, not just when a big game is on.

The group is planning to serve lunch and dinner and have a happy hour. While their sample menu may be altered, they’re exploring items such as disco fries with oxtail gravy and cheddar cheese, cornbread with honey butter, Baja fish tacos, and a classic burger all day. For lunch, a brisket sandwich with chimichurri mayo and pickled red onions is a potential menu item, while for dinner, Pastena is considering a coffee-crusted pork loin with Jameson cream sauce and braised baby kale or roasted sweet potato with roasted poblano peppers and sikil pak.

The bar will have an extensive beer list, including selections from Oakland-based brewers Original Pattern and Ghost Town.

Tsay said that with Oaklandish’s expertise in merchandise, they will roll out a line of Oakland Athletic Club merch to boost revenue. Additionally, Oaklandish already has merch partnerships with the Roots, Soul, the Valkyries, the Warriors, and the Ballers, and Tsay said she’s hoping to leverage those relationships for merchandise launches, player guest appearances, and signings, as well as away game watch parties. They’re also expecting to continue relationships with Oakland’s sports teams, including with their supporter groups and potentially as official bar partners to some.

Oaklandish already has apparel deals with The Roots, and CEO Angela Tsay, who is also part of the new Oakland Athletic Club ownership, said she hopes to use her company’s partnerships to support the sports bar. Credit: Florence Middleton for The Oaklandside

The team is also working out a way to specifically honor women’s sports at the Oakland Athletic Club. Tsay says they’re working on having a dedicated lounge area for showing women’s sports.

“People are extremely excited just to have somewhere to gather again,” Tsay said. “Oakland definitely took its punches throughout the pandemic, and the recovery has been uneven, but we want to be part of that resurgence, a real gathering place at the center of downtown that’s open to everyone, where Oaklanders can recognize and see each other and see the future of the city. There’s nothing like enjoying a sports game with a crowd of fellow Oaklanders.”

The target opening date for the Oakland Athletic Club (59 Grand Ave.) is June 8, in time for the start of the World Cup on June 11.

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