Brown Sugar Kitchen, Bocanova To Fill Uptown Oakland Spaces Vacated by Picán, Ozumo

Just as Picán and Ozumo Oakland depart the Uptown dining scene they helped establish, two other anchors of the Oakland food world, Bocanova and Brown Sugar Kitchen, will move into their former digs. Ozumo closed last November, and Picán announced just yesterday that it would shutter after service this weekend, hopefully to move elsewhere. Both left before their leases were up, struggling to fill their large spaces at 2251 and 2295 Broadway — a combined 13,600-square-feet.

For the Uptown newcomers, those digs will be subdivided into four smaller spaces. Bocanova, which has served Latin American cuisine in Jack London Square at 55 Webster Street since 2009, will move its operations entirely to one of those four spots. Brown Sugar Kitchen, meanwhile, will enter a still-sizable 4,000-square-foot space. That will serve as the restaurant’s Oakland flagship, offering chef/owner Tanya Holland the space for a full bar and dinner service.

Holland’s small West Oakland space at 2534 Mandela Parkway opened in 2008, and she’s been eyeing an expansion to Uptown since at least 2014, when her West Oakland BBQ spinoff restaurant closed.

• Two Big Uptown Oakland Restaurant Spaces Get New, High-Profile Tenants [SF Business Times]
• Oakland’s Picán To Close [ESF]