Uptown’s nightlife just got a boost. The Layover is now open.
Located where Pat’s once used to be, the Layover is a cocktail lounge, but not just a watering hole, as owner RaeAnne Turner points out.
“It is like a living room,” “says RaeAnne, who co-owns the bar with three other people. “It’s very comfortable.”
This rather plush living room has board games like chess, art shows on a rotating basis, and it’s going to have lots of music. One of the four owners, Zachary Turner, who is RaeAnne’s husband, is their musical backbone. He is better known as Prozack Turner, the front man of the hip-hop group, Foreign Legion.
The other two owners are also a couple. Christie Vaughn and Tim Martinez bring their green builder credentials to the team. Tim’s association with Uptown goes back way before the area became Uptown. His café/art gallery Papa Buzz preceded the hipster-destination, Mama Buzz.
With posh restaurants like Pican and Flora, champagne lounges like Mimosa, the Fox and the Paramount, and reliable hangouts like Luka’s Tap Room, the area between 17th and Grand along Telegraph and Broadway comes alive and bustles with energy every evening. But just one street over from Broadway, it’s a very different vibe. Franklin Street gets quiet and empty as soon as the offices close at 5 p.m. But the Layover hopes to change that – and to expand Uptown and the arts district a little bit farther.
“I think everybody involved sees the potential in Oakland. It’s like a rebirth,” says RaeAnne, who is a party planner at Jillians Billiard’s Club, a sports bar in the Metreon in San Francisco.
But the best plans and ambitions can stall without resources. The four had a business plan, but couldn’t find any traditional lender to take a chance on them in this economy. So they made friends -- with a police officer, with members of the community and soon had the support of City Council member Nancy Nadel and the City of Oakland. They eventually found a non-profit group to lend to them. They got their cabaret license, and things began falling in place.
It’s a small space, with a capacity of just 49 people. But on Franklin Street, 49 people can seem like a lot on any given evening.
The Layover opens to the public Friday, October 9.
1517 Franklin Street
oaklandlayover.com/
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