Alan Lucchesi

Works: West Oakland, since 1992

Regular order: Beignets

My house burned down in the Oakland hills fire in 1991, and we got enough money out of the insurance deal to buy a building here. We came because it’s on the edge of town and there’s no one to bother us. We have a lot of elbow room here and not much supervision. We can do what we want. People feel like they can relax here. It’s not an uptight place to be. After the freeway came down, this area opened up. When I moved here people thought I was nuts, but musicians are loud, we can’t go just anywhere. West Oakland is a great location for us. At the studio, we’ll have a mariachi band in one room, someone rapping in another, and someone doing techno down the hall. It’s a mash-up of people who would never meet anyplace else and they’re all hanging out together. It’s a microcosm of this area. Everyone is in harmony. Now I’m trying to open a club, but first I had to convince the city that it was a good idea. When Tanya and Phil wrote us a recommendation, the doors at City Hall blew open. They are very enamored of Brown Sugar Kitchen there. One of the planning commissioners said, “If Brown Sugar Kitchen thinks it’s a good idea, I’m in.”