A family bakery, three decades on Martin Luther King Jr Way, and the quiet end of an era.
It’s All Good Bakery was established in 1996 as a Black-owned, family-run bakery in North Oakland, at 5622 Martin Luther King Jr Way. For close to thirty years it served Southern desserts to a devoted community.
The storefront was modest — a small retail counter backed by a larger kitchen, the kind of proportions that tell you the baking came first. Regulars came for sweet potato pie, pound cake, banana pudding, cobblers, and cakes for birthdays, holidays, and weddings. More than one public account begins the same way: the smell of fresh cake the moment you walked in.
What set the place apart was its address. The building’s site had been the first official office of the Black Panther Party, and the bakery honored that history with a wall of photographs and periodical covers near the counter. A stop for pie could become, without ceremony, a brush with a pivotal chapter of Oakland’s past. The history page covers that part of the story in more detail.
In early 2025, the bakery shared that it had closed its doors, thanking the community after years of baking. The response from longtime customers was immediate and fond — the words “end of an era” came up again and again.
This remembrance exists so the place, the flavors, and the history are not forgotten.