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OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) – A fixture in Oakland’s nightlife scene is getting a new life. Ruby Room permanently closed on New Year’s Eve, but it was recently bought by a neighboring business.
Ruby Room has been a staple in Oakland for more than two decades. Located just blocks from Lake Merritt, it is one of the last true dive bars in the city. Its history can be seen throughout – a fitting ruby red pool table and graffiti decorating the bathrooms.
Majority and founding owner Alfredo Botello gets to be in charge of the bar for just a few more days. Soon, he’ll be passing on the keys to someone else.
The ownership change comes after Botello and his business partners first announced that the bar would close for good at the end of last year, due to the pandemic.
“The Ruby Room has experienced what all of downtown Oakland has been experiencing, which I think during COVID a lot of people’s going out habits changed. You realize you can just go home, buy a bottle of tequila and watch a movie, and I think that became a habit,” Botello said.
Botello and his partners went their separate ways. He wrote a book and decided to move on from the bar business. But then he had a change of heart.
“I realized when we were closing how much we played a part in people’s lives,” he said. “People, they proposed here, they met their future wife here, they came here to nurse a bad break up.”
The three co-owners decided to find potential buyers, opening up on Friday nights to keep their liquor license. In January, Dawit Kidane and Gibtsait Abraha, the owners of an Ethiopian restaurant located just a block away, called with an offer.
“For me, best of all, they wanted to keep it as it was,” said Botello. “They loved Ruby Room being this mid-century living room to all of Oakland and they even wanted to keep on some of my staff and so on. No change in decor, maybe clean up here and there, and I love that.”
The new owners will take over on March 1. Until then, Botello will remain in charge and soak up the opportunity to hear from more people about how Ruby Room has changed their lives.
“They said ‘Thank you for creating Oakland’s living room.’ And at that moment I realized we were doing more than just selling liquor at a markup. We were truly a community space where everybody was welcome,” Botello said.
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