[Blackhawk]

Old Oakland, basically around 9th and Washington.

Particulars: Every fucking drink costs $10. Unless it's Liege, which is $15. Welcome to "Old Town".

Penelope
http://www.penelopeoakland.com/
3-6pm gets afterwork crowd. All the guys are obsessed with a stupid dice game at the counter leaving the women alone. The signature house drink has beets. It tastes great, but leaves an icky reminder the next day when your shit is stained red.

Pacific Coast Brewing Company
http://www.pacificcoastbrewing.com/
Put your head down and chew your chow. Nice place to go with a group, but no mixing allowed. Dead by 10pm. Impossible to meet anyone.

Arsimona
http://www.arsimonalounge.com/
Was black professional, but then the ghetto started coming in and someone was shot and killed. Been closed since the shooting.

Liege
http://www.liegeoakland.com/
Got all the black dudes kicked out when Arismona closed and none of the women. Total dick party the nights I've gone by, and you definitely need ear plugs. Cocktails overpriced. Waste of time.

Air Lounge.
http://www.airoakland.com/home.php
Basement club. Thursday night is the big night. Got all the black chicks from Arsimona and surprisingly few dudes. Since the shooting they frisk you for weapons before they let you walk underground. Other nights it's a slam poetry lounge...

The Trappist
http://www.thetrappist.com/
Do not mix. Do not talk with others. Only drink your expensive imported beer with your table. The patio out back is the only sociable place where you might actually open someone.

The Night Light
http://www.facebook.com/TheNightLightClub
Cash only, but they have an ATM inside. Couch lounge good, bar is immobile. Some creepy old guy still dresses like Dennis Hopper did in Easy Rider, 40 years later. Well made cocktails, but not much crowd, and their drinks intoxicate quickly --ask for water on the side if you hope to not get beer goggles too fast. Fair, not great. Seems to pick up after 10pm.

District
http://districtoak.com
Just opened. Worth checking out. Large bar, lounge area, music not too loud. Kinda a white professional crowd until 9pm, then goes black professional until 11pm, then everyone leaves. If it builds a crowd, could be great. Chairs at the bar are immobile. You have to pull it out, step in, then pull it back behind you so you can sit. Stupid.

[donkey_puncher]

They sound like pretty shit places to pick up?

[Blackhawk]

Make Westings
http://www.yelp.com/biz/make-westing-oakland
http://makewesting.com/

No loud club music so you can actually talk... and filled with loud people talking. Packed with post-college girls in jeans and heels that actually control their weight... and mostly AFCs busy getting drunk and playing with their phones, avoiding even eye contact with the girls. Oh, and two indoor bocce ball courts. I don't get that either. Right off subway exit. Had no problem opening several girls in sets over the course of an hour there, but a wingman would have helped a lot since it's all double, triple and larger sets.

The Den
http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-den-oakland
http://www.thedenoakland.com/

Mostly an over-30 black government worker lounge, trying to have class. "Let me guess. You all work together as...." is as good of an opening as any here when you see a table of all women. Meter maids, counter girls, all wearing their shortest dress and highest heels. Either the prices or just the vibe of the place keeps away the drama-mommas. When the Fox Theater has an act, will be overran with fans instead.

[pitt]

Blackhawk how friendly are the chicks there? How easy? Is Oakland mostly a black people city? How are the girls in terms of booties?

[Blackhawk]

Oakland First Fridays are, unsurprisingly, the first Friday of each month, and definitely a SWPL kind of event. From 3pm-sunset its flocked with white college students and european tourists, and worth targeting with day game openings if you're visiting the area. Take BART to the 19th street station --if you exit on the side with Telegraph Ave you'll see a bunch of foodie-appealing food trucks in a fenced in lot around 21st ave and Telegraph. (Look for the tall Smokestack with rock climbers painted on it --that's Crossfit East Bay which is next door) Pretty easy to talk about the food, compare the food trucks, and otherwise open. The food trucks are here every Friday, but I haven't checked out what it's like without the First Friday crowds feeding people into it.

You'll also notice some foot traffic over to Classic Car Show in the parking lot of Giant Burgers. For some reason there were goth girls hanging around the cars here. There's also Classic Car West which if you're into cars you'll appreciate, but is a waste of time for bang purposes.

You can follow the hordes of tourists up to the circuit at 23rd and 25th between Telegraph and Broadway, but IMHO it's a waste of time in terms of opening girls. It's too crowded and too cramped. The attraction is a bunch of old auto repair shops that now house hipster artist shows (most of it angry and ugly), and there's so many people wanting to get in the owners have to gate them to comply with the fire codes. So you wait in long lines and as one person walks out, the line allows another person in. But it's free, right?

There's also a few street vendor booths with long lines, and a Korean market that is constantly trying to shoo the hipsters away from its parking lot. The art gallery loop has too many herby hipsters that will be openly drinking cases of nasty, cheap beer in the streets, particularly flats of Pabst Blue Ribbon 40 oz, building up their liquid courage. By sunset every woman in the area will be hostile after having multiple amateurish, floundering passes made at her, and will have left. But from 3pm to sunset the food booth to the burger drive in area is interesting.

AVOID: Anything calling itself "Oaklandish". It's a code word used by pot heads, and between 19th-14th where they congregate they are a rough and grim crowd.

AVOID: The Stork Club. Horrible male-to-female ratio. And why pay a cover when there's so many bands playing in the street for free hoping to sell their CDs, with people dancing around them?

AVOID: The sex shop on Telegraph. Walking around with a bag full of plastic dildos is NOT going to get you laid.

There's a couple cafes on Telegraph that have a cover charge on First Fridays near the sex shop. They looked interesting from the outside, seemed to have a good female contingent. Didn't get to check them out since I was too determined to get up to the Art Galleries --a decision I now regret.

I keep hearing good things about Radio down on 13th Ave off Broadway, and every time I pop into this crappy little bar in the Oakland Tribune building, I am disappointed. I do not understand why people keep raving about it to me. The few times I've been there it's just newspaper guys bitching about their bosses and bitching about their wives and bitching about how no one buys newspapers anymore. Maybe you'll have better luck. I really don't see the appeal.

[Hencredible Casanova]

Surprised Somar isn't on your list. That was my favorite venue in Oakland. It's a staple in the downtown area. Thursday through Saturday nights are pretty good. They like to put on throwback hip-hop classics.

Air Lounge can really be hit or miss. I've had great nights there and horrible nights as well. Sometimes there's nothing but fatties and hood chicks all over the place. However, the bartenders there are fine as fuck. There was one in particular who was among the hottest chicks I've ever seen in my life. She was so on point I couldn't believe she was working a job

Oakland all in all sucks though in terms of nightlife. It's trying to come back but it has a long way to go. Many parts of the city feel kind of iffy and it still has that blue collar kind of feel even though certain areas are becoming hipster.

I lived in Oakland for a little while and many parts of the city are eerily quiet at night. Just not a good look. I prefer SF for nightlife because it's got variety and way more venues.

The main thing Oakland has going for it is it's more diverse (ethnically) than SF.

[PickupNinja]

I currently live in Oakland. Probably one of the hardest cities to pick up girls in the Bay Area. Even more so than San Jose.

Lots of lesbians and man-hating, tatted-out, hipsterish or punk girls with a chip on their shoulder.

I'd recommend either Berkeley (in the college areas) or San Francisco. Avoid Oakland. But I agree Make Westing is a decent bar and has decent talent (mostly from Berkeley).

[LoveBug]

I live a little ways away from Oakland but come to the Coliseum for sporting events as a Raiders fan. Never considered it much of a city for picking up women, the city is working class and many parts are run down. Other parts of the bay area, particularly west are where I head to when I club, but after reading some of the other posts I might rethink on some occasion

[Blackhawk]

The other thing to be aware is how "event" orientated the Bay Area is. There's all sorts of pop-up events that come up every month, rendering the bar scene rather secondary.

The Alameda Antique Fair is an excellent day game spot... but it's only the first Sunday of each month.

The Grand Lake Farmers Market is excellent for day gaming... but only Saturday mornings and easy as hell to miss if you sleep in too late.

Rarely does the good stuff make it to http://www.eastbayexpress.com/

Likewise the theater district downtown around the Paramount and the Fox is only as good as the concert playing that night. Depending on which band plays you'll be surrounded by hundreds of girls of that type all at once --who then disappear after that event is over, sitting at home watching TV night after night until their next event comes up.