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Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Old Soul: Souley Vegan Found To Be Located in Oakland's Oldest Building

SFGate:
[A] plain, one-story, unnamed building at 301 Broadway near Jack London Square, which now houses a vegan soul-food restaurant, appears to be the oldest building in Oakland and one of the oldest in the region.... The brick-and-plaster building dates from 1857, according to the city's tax assessment maps and a cultural heritage survey conducted in 1982. No other building in Oakland, and only a few in the Bay Area, survived from those days. The rest have burned, crumbled, rotted, collapsed or been razed. Even more astonishingly, 301 Broadway looks pretty much as it did in 1857. With the exception of indoor plumbing, electricity and an occasional fresh coat of paint, not much has been done to the building in 157 years... According to city records, it was built by Theophilide St. Germain and her husband, a French count, as a wine shop. They moved to Oakland in the early 1850s to invest in real estate in the wake of the Gold Rush... Rahman's mother opened Souley Vegan in 2009 after a successful run at the Grand Lake farmers' market, and now has a large following for her candied yams, black-eyed peas and tofu loaf with rosemary gravy. "Although I don't know," Rahman said Wednesday. "After hearing the building's history, I think we need to stock more wine."

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