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Open Test Kitchen — Kitchen and Community Hub

Named after Oakland Bloom’s flagship program, Open Test Kitchen (OTK) is now also a restaurant, market and community space.

Through the brick-and-mortar space, we aim to create pathways to ownership for BIPOC, working-class, and immigrant/refugee chefs through just and equitable food systems rooted in cultural expression and economic empowerment. Chefs access:

  • Affordable kitchen and storage space;
  • Catering and other commercial opportunities (e.g. teaching gigs, chef demos, pop-ups, etc.) for chefs to experiement, and build experience while earning income, as they develop their businesses
  • A community where chefs can experiment, innovate, and develop their businesses with support and collaboration one another
  • Tool and equipment library
  • Connections to experts and referrals to other services

At Open Test Kitchen, Oakland Bloom works with chefs to welcome people from across our communities, to take part in powerful cultural events and to learn about and directly support chefs in our community and direct local economies.

Learn more and find out about upcoming events here.

Collective Organizing and Ownership

Re-imagining Food Business Development

The COVID-19 pandemic has created new realities that are forcing fundamental change. While the pandemic has surfaced deep inequities in the food service industry that have historically and further put poor and working class communities of color at risk, it has also created an opening for new solutions to emerge.

In this context, one of Oakland Bloom’s main goals as an organization is to reimagine and reshape what a healthy and just 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 that embody community principles and values, and operate in ways that hold space for BIPOC and traditionally marginalized communities. This took shape first through our collective restaurant project Understory (2020-2024) for which we were awarded a 2022 James Beard Emerging Leadership Award, and Oakland Bloom’s current work to build a Chef Collective network to co-steward and own our kitchen on 8th St in Oakland, which launched in September 2024 as Open Test Kitchen: restaurant, market and community space.

Program Goals + Services toward Collective Ownership:

  • Ongoing back-end support services in: finance, infrastructure development, lease management, legal entity structures, HR, bookkeeping, operations, and more
  • Community building and healing work among members for a strong foundation of principles, relationship, accountability and conflict management
  • Strategic planning and work sessions for collective development with the chef community – this includes defining key cooperative principles, operating agreement, etc.
  • Cooperative funding opportunities + fundraising support
  • Training opportunities for Oakland Bloom chef members.

Community potluck – November 2024


Organizing in Oakland Chinatown

Oakland Chinatown has been our operating home since 2017. It remains an important working-class immigrant neighborhood in Oakland, with generations of legacy businesses keeping food traditions alive, as well as an important resource for new immigrants and immigrant elders – particularly from China and Vietnam. Oakland Bloom works to support local grocers, and food and cultural businesses through our public events and storytelling work in the neighborhood, and through sourcing from -and investing in – our local food ecosystem.

2017

Moving to Oakland Chinatown

Oakland Bloom’s program kitchen and night market series take root in Oakland Chinatown

2018-2019

Lincoln Summer Nights

Oakland Bloom chefs lead community demonstrations at Lincoln Summer Nights and Asian Branch Library

2019

Organizing with Small Businesses

Oakland Bloom, Civic Design Studios and local merchants begin organizing around shared priorities: confronting Health Department discrimination and developing events to support local businesses.

2020-2022

COVID Response

Oakland Bloom seeds Good Good Eatz – a project sharing the stories of neighborhood merchants and helping businesses pivot during the pandemic.

Alongside this, Oakland Bloom organized mutual aid food distributions that connected both chefs in our community and small businesses in the neighborhood to support food security and access to PPE during the public health crisis.

2023-

Launching the Lantern Festival

Oakland Bloom partnered with Sticky Rice Club – and in 2023 Civic Design Studios and Cut Fruit Collective – to cohost the Lantern Festival in Oakland Chinatown. This festival brings together Oakland Bloom chefs, Chinatown merchants, artists and healers to welcome the Lunar New Year grounded in shared intentions, and community. These events intentionally focus on evening programs, to invite community back into the neighborhood at night.

From 2024, Oakland Bloom and Sticky Rice Club continue to host the Lantern Festival annually with growing numbers of engagement across small businesses, chefs and community members.

2024-

Rebuilding with Workers, Residents and Businesses

Between events, Oakland Bloom convened with local shop owners to discuss their priorities — from transportation planning, safety, immigrant rights, oral histories and storytelling.

2025-

Open Test Kitchen Community Pantry

In the wake of SNAP freezers leaving many low income residents without food assistance, Oakland Bloom began to source from Chinatown businesses and local farmers to host a community food pantry at our space, Open Test Kitchen.

2025-

Bridging Communities

Open Test Kitchen events bridge and showcase Oakland Chinatown traditions, specialty items and businesses