Click HERE if you’re having trouble viewing the gallery on your mobile device.
One of the Bay Area’s oldest restaurants, Mexicali Rose, is shutting its doors.
After 91 years, this Oakland institution will serve its last hot, heaping platters of enchiladas and chiles rellenos with rice and refried beans on June 29.
A sign posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page cited retirement as the reason:
“After serving the Bay Area for 91 years it is time to retire Mexicali Rose. We will be closing on June 29, 2018. We would like to thank our loyal customers for keeping us in business for four generations. You will be missed. 1927-2018.”
Mexicali Rose, at 701 Clay St. in the city’s Old Oakland neighborhood, has served a broad spectrum of diners over the decades, including officers from the nearby Oakland Police Department, downtown employees and fans who traveled from across the Bay Area — even across state lines.
A recording on the Mexicali Rose phone line Friday night confirmed the closing and indicated that the hours for the final days would be 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, then closed Monday and then open again Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. The dining area doesn’t serve new customers after 9 p.m.
On Saturday, longtime Oakland residents and people from as far as San Jose, Concord and Stockton gathered inside the rose-pink stucco adobe to relive old memories one last time.
The place is divided between a bar and restaurant with tables and chairs. Patrons at the bar — who gathered to drink margaritas and watch the World Cup match between Germany and Sweden mid-morning — echoed how the restaurant had the best margaritas in the Bay Area. Aztec-inspired murals surrounded the interior of the restaurant.
Rosalba Gomez, the manager of the restaurant on Saturday morning, declined to speak to this news organization as the patrons began lining up and bartenders and waitresses served at a furious pace.
“I’ve been coming here before I can even drink,” said Yvonne Bolden of Hayward.
Bolden grew up on Grand Avenue in Oakland. “I hate (it’s closing). What else is in Oakland now? Every day I’m not working, I’ll be here until it closes.”
Other patrons noted the diversity of the patrons in Mexicali Rose, many of whom were Latinos and African-Americans from West Oakland and nearby neighborhoods.
“I was upset when I heard it’s closing (on Friday),” said Ernest Hardmon III, 68, of Oakland. “This is a place where friends met friends. We welcomed all here.”
Hardmon became a regular at Mexicali Rose 30 years ago and said he had suspicions the restaurant may soon close when they started closing on Mondays a few weeks ago.
“I felt they were easing into it,” Hardmon said.
Oakland resident Susan Jones lamented the closing because she recalled her father, Louisiana native Willie Percy Jones, saying that it was one of the few local businesses that welcomed him and other black military veterans after World War II.
“The history of Mexicali Rose is truly deep with my people, black Americans,” she said, citing the open nature of both Latino and Chinatown businesses during that period. “Oakland was really a great place for assimilation for those from the South.”
The shutdown comes three years after another legendary Mexican restaurant in downtown Oakland closed its doors. La Borinqueña, a market-turned-Mexicatessen, had been in business for 71 years.
Tina Ramos of the La Borinqueña family weighed in on the news via email from a trip to Southern California: “As my mama, Natividad Ramos, always said, ‘It was friendly competition.’ Our shop and Mexicali Rose were the last two remaining businesses from the Latino Barrio aka the Old Neighborhood on the border of West Oakland and Old Oakland for years.
“When we closed La Borinqueña in 2015 we were sad to leave, but knew Mexicali Rose would continue the legacy started many generations ago of proud immigrants creating the foods of our culture here in Oakland.”
Both Hardmon and Bolden hoped that with the news of Mexicali Rose closing reverberating around the Bay Area, some patron will buy the restaurant and continue the near-century legacy on Clay Street.
“I hope somebody buys the space and reinvents it for years and years to come,” Hardmon said. “They are closing so soon, and so who’s going to teach the new waitresses how to make their margaritas if they open? But the regulars, we will be here.”
Details: 510-451-2450; www.mexicaliroseca.com
