The Pretty Lady:

After all of this roaming around, we were getting pretty hungry and tired. So we asked Susan, the teacher, for some lunch spot tips. She advised us to go to the Pretty Lady, just around the corner. To her it is something of a West Oakland landmark. The Pretty Lady has been around for fifty years or more; before we entered the diner, we spoke to a regular waiting to pickup his order. He goes to the Pretty Lady every Saturday after his shift at Kaiser. After he eats his meal, he joins his neighborhood buddies out on the chairs at Center Street. He told us that the new owners, though Asian, have stayed true to the traditional southern style of the original owner. He has been working at Kaiser for twenty years; after he retires, he plans to return to his family’s farm in Texas. He goes their every summer to help his father, who is 103.

He was telling us how West Oakland has a lot of the southern spirit to it; a lot of folks who live in West Oakland are originally from the south. He thinks that the concepts of West and East Oakland are all made up, though he thinks they are the worst places to live and North Oakland is the best place to live.

We had a delicious lunch at the Pretty Lady. We highly reccomend their potato salad.