Update: Covid killed Gaylord’s Caffe in April of 2020. 😿

Gaylords opened in 1976, long before I was around, but I started going when I first moved to Oakland back in the early 1990s and stopped in pretty much every time I went by Piedmont until it closed. It is a sad transition and the loss of a classic piece of history, like the end of It’s Tops in SF. I’m going to miss the place, the people that worked there, the people who parked at the tables working, but most of all sitting on 41st street bench on a cool, sunny day, enjoying coffee and a lemon cake while reading the Guardian or the Weekly from the vending boxes.

Corona killed another of my favorites, Itaba, which had replace my previous favorite haunt, Kotobuki, in the same location (3920 Piedmont Ave.). Thankfully, at least a few of my Piedmont favorites have survived so far: Cato’s Ale House, The Wolf, and Shimizu.