Starting a New Project in Food, Community, and Access
Embracing the past, and starting a new type of eatery in Oakland’s KONO District. https://www.commongroundsoak.com/
What’s next for me?
When I began to shutter Propeller Labs late last year, I started to set my sights on a few different avenues.
While cryptocurrency quickly became the darling of the tech world, I found that the community was so riddled with drama and speculation that it became a daily distraction. I constantly found myself overwhelmed by the ticker value rather than the underlying technology that I had to take a break from it altogether. (Those of you building valuable services on the technology are stronger-willed than me. I’ll HODL just fine from the sidelines.)
So, over the last 6–7 months, I’ve been dabbling in a few areas that have peaked my personal interest, specifically taking a hard look at some of the businesses I’ve invested in over the last 5 years. The vast majority went to family endeavors — namely the commissary kitchen business my mom has built over the last 5 years.
What began as a small venture away from her norm of commercial real estate and flipping became a full-fledged business. Her first commissary kitchen finished construction just under 5 years ago at our BART-friendly location of 1014 Fruitvale Avenue. The location, fully-equipped with a walk-in-freezer, walk-in-cooler, tons of commercial-grade ovens, cooktops, hoods, and stand mixers, to name a few, officially became home to a master leasing tenant running the operation full-time for just over 2 years now.
After looking deeper into the business — reviewing the operating inefficiencies, evaluating the growth in the food service space, and learning about the industries a whole — I decided to jump head-first into the business.
What’s cooking?
I’ve begun to renovate real estate property with my mom in the KONO area of Downtown/Temescal Oakland. Oakland likes to distinguish its areas, thus KONO (Koreatown & Northgate) was created. The area is adjacent to the growing medical region of Oakland called “Pill Hill,” where my mom first made her mark in real estate in the East Bay. It’s also uniquely sandwiched between two vastly popular food zones (Uptown & Temescal), while leaving a small corridor of underserved property between 29th and 42nd & Telegraph.
While the commissary business has been successful, we’ve seen a reasonably sudden plateau in growth. Many of the larger kitchens have shuttered, and others have had to significantly reduce fees and usable space to make ends meet. Although it may be directly attributed to the market saturation and general operating inefficiencies, our family has always been better and optimizing for the real estate.
So, instead of focusing on making the current arrangement more efficient (I feel we’re facing diminishing returns), we’ve begun looking at another avenue of growth in the food service space — people and community.
Finding a common ground
Oakland is extremely rich in culture. People from various backgrounds, whether homegrown or implants sourced from the tech boom, bring their own tastes and interests to a thriving community. It’s what makes Oakland so unique. Most importantly, when people gather to share in life experiences, discuss their day, and enjoy company, its almost always done around food.
So, we’re calling our new project and location “Common Grounds,” a place for the shared celebration of life and food. We’ve already laid the groundwork and submitted our papers to the Alameda County Health Department and City of Oakland Planning/Zoning Department for a new eatery concept here in KONO.
We’re excited to share this new vision with everyone. I’m encouraged to bring a new fixture to the community that will not only make nutritious eating more affordable to patrons, but also allow food entrepreneurs to create brand new restaurant and delivery services with our turnkey retail solutions.
2019
Due to the fickle nature of regulation and review, we’ve set a conservative goal for mid-2019, but hope to officially open the doors to our new project as soon as possible.
If you’re interested in learning more about our project or opening your own food business, visit our temporary site: https://www.commongroundsoak.com/.
Thank you all for your support!
