We support migrant/BIPOC chefs entrepreneurs through mutual support, healing, neighborhood resilience, and accessible pathways to ownership.

Programs

Visit our Cafe, Bar and Restaurant Open Test Kitchen

Named after our flagship incubator program. our storefront is now open Wednesdays through Saturdays, come support Oakland Bloom chefs and enjoy unique and delicious foods, drinks and vibes.

Open Test Kitchen Incubator Program (OTK)

Open Test Kitchen is a year-long food business incubator and training program that combines commercial food training and consistent access to commercial opportunities for supplemental earned income (catering, events, teaching gigs, chef demos, pop-ups, etc.).

Oakland Chinatown Anti-Displacement Work

Since 2017, Oakland Bloom has operated out of Oakland Chinatown – a resilient immigrant hub with food and community at its center. We’ve been working with local merchants, healers, cultural workers and organizers connect and strengthen community support in the neighborhood, and support Oakland Chinatown into the future.

Collective Ownership

One of Oakland Bloom’s main goals as an organization is to reimagine and reshape what a healthy food service industry could look like. We aim to work towards advancing equity, accessibility, and worker rights through the development of cooperatively owned food businesses and strong collective networks that embody community principles and values, and operates in ways that hold space for BIPOC and traditionally marginalized communities.

Why Our Work is Important

Through our Open Test Kitchen program, Oakland Bloom works with poor and working class refugee and immigrant chefs passionate about starting their own food businesses. Our chefs come to us with tremendous talent, passion, and heart. They also face harsh realities of different barriers-to-entry, exclusions, and traumas, alongside complicated systems in the U.S. that control access to resources and services.

The majority of chefs in our network are women of color, mothers, and sole providers for their households; many are not English proficient and may face additional barriers due to their immigration status. Oakland Bloom’s work is designed specifically with these realities in mind, to support pathways to business ownership for our base of chefs in a way that is accessible.