USA, CA: Pacific Coast Brewing closing for good in November

Pacific Coast Brewing, Oakland’s 29-year-old craft beer spot, known as much for its signature “whale ales” as it burgers and assorted pub snacks, is closing for good in in early November, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on September 22.

In a statement announcing the news, the Pacific Coast Brewing team blamed the decision on a few familiar industry culprits: lease issues at their Old Oakland spot and a rapidly changing Bay Area restaurant scene.

Craft beer is booming in the East Bay, a landscape Pacific Coast Brewing helped shape almost three decades ago. Unfortunately the trend has moved away from traditional beer/restaurant model and on to beer gardens like Arthur Mac’s in North Oakland near the MacArthur Bart station, a place where foot traffic is high and the menus are small.

Looking back, Pacific Coast Brewing was launched in late 1988 by founders Steve Wolff, Don Gortemiller and Barry Lazarus. And it didn’t take long for it to become a favorite among locals, thanks in part to music acts and the building’s Gold Rush era aesthetics.

“After watching Oakland’s economy take two steps forward and one (or two) steps back, more times than we can remember, it’s gratifying to see our little Old Oakland neighborhood blooming, as well as Uptown prospering, and now the mushrooming of building cranes throughout the Broadway corridor and beyond,” the statement reads.

24 September, 2017