Team Fort Green: Johnson, Chapin-Rienzo, and Taylor
It wasn’t that long ago that downtown Oakland was an extremely tough sell for business owners.
Now it’s getting to the point where vacancies are hard to come by and restaurant/bar groups are doubling down on the area with additional locations. Or in the case of Demitrius Chapin-Rienzo, Adi Taylor, and Nathan Johnson, tripling down.
The trio, longtime veterans of the Bay Area food and nightlife industry, launched the popular Drexl Bar on 19th Street in the summer of 2014. Earlier this year, they announced that they would be opening another Uptown bar. The Miranda, a slightly more elevated concept than Drexl, is set to open in late June and will be located in a 1,600-square-foot space in the same building as The Punchdown wine bar and Itani Ramen .
And it turns out they have another project up their sleeves just down the street in Old Oakland. The Drexl group is taking over operation of The Go sports bar on the corner of 8th and Washington streets. In its place, they’ll be opening Fort Green. (The name derives from the fact that the building itself is green and looks like a fort, while the color has added layers meaning in Oakland—for example, the A’s, environmentalism, and, of course, Warriors’ spiritual leader Draymond Green.)
The plan, says Chapin-Rienzo, is to loosely keep the sports bar theme but give the space a modern facelift. That means establishing a more en-vogue drinks/cocktail program, of course. But it also means updating the food program, which will be a significant component of the project and a first for the Drexl team. To help them, the group is tapping a couple of well-respected names from the San Francisco dining scene: Nicolaus Balla and Cortney Burns.
The couple co-chefs at Bar Tartine, sister restaurant to beloved Tartine bakery in the Mission district, are consulting on the menu at Fort Green, where the idea is to offer an updated, healthier take on classic sports bar comfort fare with an emphasis on using sustainable local products.
“We’re super stoked to have [Nicolaus and Cortney] on board; they’re very diligent about the quality of the products they use and where everything comes from,” says Chapin-Rienzo. “We want the food to be fun and exciting—a sports bar menu with a healthy and interesting twist. We still want it to be approachable, just not heartburn city.”
As for whether Fort Green would remain a full-on sports bar in an area with a diminishing number of casual spots to catch a game, Chapin-Rienzo said yes—for the most part.
“We definitely plan to continue to keep it as a bar where there are sports on and more than your average number of TVs,” he said. “… But we also hope to establish it as a bar and late-night eating place for weekend hanging out and socializing more like a traditional bar would be.”
Look for an opening in the latter part of May.
Fort Green: 736 Washington St, Oakland.
