“I don’t discriminate.” And he lives two blocks away.Įverything about the bar is warm and eclectic in a way that creates a comfortable but cool neighborhood watering hole. He said it doesn’t matter to him that it’s a gay bar. “I’ve been happily married for 24 years,” Robert Jarratt said, adding that his wife often joins him at Velvet. Then there are Wednesdays with DJ Weyland from KPFA “Hard Knock Radio,” and happy hour on Friday with Salene and Candy.Ī parade of women and men, gay and straight, young and old, pass six nights a week (it’s closed on Tuesdays) through Velvet’s understated doorway at 3411 MacArthur Blvd., lit from inside by a warm red-hued glow. First Saturdays are reserved for “Crush,” a hip-hop party for boys who like boys, girls who like girls and their friends. It would be hard, however, to say what would pass as unusual at the popular Velvet lounge, where every third Saturday a drag king performance art group takes to the stage for gender-bending cabaret.
Not what you’d expect to find at one of the few bars catering to Oakland’s lesbian community, one of the largest among U.S. All gray-haired, they looked like they might spend more time lifting pints instead of weights. Did you hear the one about the two straight guys who walk into a gay bar “… ?Īctually, the evening I visited Velvet - a hip bar in the Laurel district - the only customers shortly after the 6 p.m.
