Blue Oak Cafe: Inside Oakland’s Museum

It has been over a year since the Oakland Museum of California went through a major renovation. Today it is much more modern. Although it has kept its extensive California History exhibit, it has brought in some great exhibits. When they reopened in 2011, they brought the fun Pixar exhibit. Today, they have the 1968 Exhibit which describes the major events of that year. My book club met there today and afterwards we had lunch at the museum café, Blue Oak.


The café was also upgraded during the renovation and the food has gotten a little fancier. Blue Oak Cafe serves mostly salads and sandwiches, but they seem to do it well. I ordered the tuna nicoise salad, which came with seared Ahi tuna, haricot vert, potatoes, boiled egg, and olives. This is actually one of my favorite salads and they did a good job with it.


Several of my friends ordered the chicken salad sandwich on focaccia bread. I had a bite and thought the filling was excellent and the thinly sliced apples in it made a huge difference in texture and taste.


When my friend’s beet salad came out, there were “oohs and ahhs”. It was such a beautiful presentation unexpected for the museum café. I suspect that this was a tasty dish as the plate was licked clean.


If you are visiting the Oakland Museum, you should not bypass the Blue Oak Café. The food is pretty good and you can feel good about supporting a local institution.