""I'm sorry we couldn't keep it going longer - god knows we've tried," said co-owner Miles Palliser. "Thank you for everything you've done for us; it's been a wonderful ride. We've opened a few businesses over the years, and we've had to close a couple. And I don't know if any of them have hurt as much as this one.""
""This is something that we have been fighting for and against probably since the beginning of COVID, to be honest," he said. "As so many bars and restaurants know, these times are tough and we've been doing everything we can think of to keep this place alive.""
""Times had been tough. The exodus of major sports franchises from Oakland - the Raiders, the Warriors and the A's - have been devastating to local sports bars. Last year, the The Athletic Club Oakland launched a crowdfunding campaign to pivot into a \"chef-driven remodel timed between February's Super Bowl and the start of March Madness,\" according to the San Francisco Standard.""
The Athletic Club Oakland announced permanent closure after eight years, with its final day falling on the Super Bowl. The bar at 59 Grand Ave. near Lake Merritt was founded in 2018 by Miles Palliser and Ezra Berman as a sister location to the San Francisco Athletic Club, which closed last summer after 11 years. Owners cited lingering COVID-19 impacts and the local exodus of major sports franchises — the Raiders, Warriors and A's — as crippling to business. The venue often hosted large crowds with cold beer, wings and outdoor TVs; crowdfunding to fund a chef-driven remodel failed to reverse decline.
Read at The Mercury News
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