{"id":350825,"date":"2026-06-07T19:23:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/350825\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T19:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:23:22","slug":"oakland-plant-based-burger-joint-closes-saturday-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/350825\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland plant-based burger joint closes Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday, June 6, is the last day of service for the vegan restaurant, Malibu\u2019s Burgers, in Uptown Oakland, according to owner Darren Preston.<\/p>\n<p>Preston announced the closure in an Instagram post last week. He also said the restaurant\u2019s Saturday night service will conclude with a comedy show by vegan comedian Steven Marcus Releford at 8:30 p.m. The business said every $25 ticket purchased comes with a free milkshake.<\/p>\n<p>Malibu\u2019s Burgers, located at 326 23rd St. in Uptown Oakland, said it will be open Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. and again from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., when the show starts.<\/p>\n<p>The closure comes amid a smattering of closures for local vegetarian and vegan restaurants. Oakland\u2019s 31-year-old vegan restaurant, Millennium, closed temporarily in May to restructure, while Amy\u2019s Drive Thru closed its final Bay Area location at the end of March.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyloading\" alt=\"Darren Preston, pictured with his daughter, stands in front Malibu's Burgers' San Rafael location. (Courtesy of Darren Preston)\" width=\"1070\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/SJM-L-MALIBURGER-0606-01-1.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"10812022\" \/>Darren Preston, pictured with his daughter, stands in front Malibu\u2019s Burgers&#8217; San Rafael location. (Courtesy of Darren Preston)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The business began as a food truck in 2019 on Lake Merritt. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2021\/04\/07\/5-best-bay-area-plant-based-burger-restaurants\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The popularity of the plant-based smashburgers<\/a> allowed Preston to soon open a permanent location on Oakland\u2019s Piedmont Avenue. After the lease ended in late 2023, Malibu Burgers moved to the 23rd street location. He also opened a location in San Rafael in December 2024, but it shuttered a few months after.<\/p>\n<p>The classic burger joint served vegan Impossible Burgers and dairy-free cheese and shakes, as well as meatless chicken sandwiches. The vegan-based restaurant expanded to offer burgers with meat and cheese in January to reach a wider audience.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday\u2019s shutdown will mark the end of the company\u2019s last remaining location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday, June 6, is the last day of service for the vegan restaurant, Malibu\u2019s Burgers, in Uptown Oakland,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[389,184,7,8,332,413,421,181,23,100,143,145,144,182,412,420],"class_list":["post-350825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda-county","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-east-bay","tag-food","tag-food-and-drink","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-pm-report","tag-restaurants","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}