This well-loved Oakland destination restaurant is closing after 20 years

When Rich and Rebekah Wood opened Wood Tavern in Oakland's Rockridge in 2007, it landed in a sweet spot: a neighborhood brasserie that felt like home to nearby residents while attracting diners from across the region. 

Almost 20 years later, Wood Tavern is still busy, but it is nearing the end of its run. The Woods will close the 50–seat restaurant at 6317 College Ave. when its lease expires at the end of the year.

Since the couple launched Wood Tavern, they've had three children and opened three more restaurants. Rich Wood is nearing 60 and said he wants to focus on other projects, such as expanding Southie, the sandwich shop next door to Wood Tavern that has a second location in Alameda. But it wasn't an easy decision.

"It's so emotional and so personal. It's unspeakable to think about what we're about to do," Rich Wood said, describing how customers have pleaded with him not to close.

The Woods' other restaurants will remain in operation: two locations of Southie, along with the Wolf in Oakland, which they co-own with chef Yang Peng. They hope to resume dinner service at the Oakland Southie, which they suspended recently, when the Wood Tavern closes.

Southie in Alameda and the Wolf "are going gangbusters," Wood said. But while the Wolf gets support from a pool of investors, he said, "the Tavern is just me and Bek."

To keep Wood Tavern going another 10 years would require a "daunting" amount of energy, Rich Wood said. "We just beat the bejeezus out of that place," he said. Inflation, taxes and other economic issues are making it harder to run a full-service restaurant than when they started the business, compared to the fast-casual model of the Alameda Southie, he said. "Margins just get slimmer and slimmer."

Before Wood Tavern, the Woods owned and operated Frascati, a California-Mediterranean restaurant in San Francisco's Russian Hill, from 2001 to 2006. When Wood Tavern debuted in early 2007, former Chronicle critic Michael Bauer raved about its warm service and "exceptional" hanger steak and halibut, and included it on the Chronicle Top 100 Restaurants for several years after that. 

The Woods followed up Wood Tavern with the first location of Southie in 2011, and the Wolf in 2017, taking over the space of Oakland's legendary Bay Wolf. Last year, they expanded with the Alameda location of Southie in Park Station beer garden. 

Rebekah Wood, who has been less involved in restaurant operations while caring for their children and becoming a real estate agent last year, said that restaurants and neighborhoods evolve, and that she is looking back on their time at Wood Tavern with gratitude rather than sadness. 

"It was never just us or ever one person, but this exquisite combination of dedicated employees and excellent chefs and the community," she said. "The beauty of that space and what we were able to create alchemized to something beautiful. That's why it's so bittersweet."

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