Cafe Van Kleef, an Uptown Oakland dive bar, is as eclectic a haunt as they come.
The bartender placed our drinks in front of us, and the first thing I noticed was the garnish. A large wedge of grapefruit sat precariously along the rim of the dense, low-cut glass. It was frosty from the ice, which made the cocktail look like a muddled pink planet, perhaps like Jupiter if Van Kleef had painted it.
The first sip made me pucker up, as the grapefruit juice was tart but tasty. That’s what makes greyhounds fun — you never know if it’s going to be sweet or sour. It all depends on the ripeness of the grapefruit. As the ice melted and the drink became more diluted, the easier it went down the hatch. After two rounds, the stiff drinks had me thinking about how hungover I was going to be the next day.
As my co-workers and I moved from the bar, which is near the entrance, to a table toward the back, I couldn’t help but think of my dad — the impetus for my visit. He used to visit the bar when he worked nearby. A regular 9-to-5 business owner in downtown Oakland, he and his co-workers would often visit the bar after a long day and revel in tales from owner Van Kleef. My dad says that Van Kleef would often talk in seemingly never-ending run-on sentences but that he was a great storyteller.
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