The Ruby Room

The Ruby Room is a bar at 132 14th Street in Oakland, across from the Oakland Main Library. It opened under that name in 1999, when Alfredo Botello and Iiad Mawikunich bought the premises. The site had operated as the Court Lounge and, before that, Chico Chimes; it had been used as a bar since the 1940s or 1950s. Trevor Latham, who began working there in 1999, became a co-owner in 2007 alongside Tim Tolle and Botello.

The L-shaped main room had wood panelling, red vinyl booths, a glitter-black ceiling and a rock wall estimated to date from the 1950s. The Ruby Room also had red lighting and indoor smoking. It hosted country nights and themed parties, including pirates-versus-cowboys and Bowie-versus-Elvis events. Its 80 Cent 80s Night received an East Bay Express award in 2015. The East Bay Rats Motorcycle Club regularly used the bar as a meeting place; Latham had previously been the club’s president. The Ruby Room also spawned the Oakland bar Radio.

House music featured in a recurring Sunday night in 2021, with local Oakland and San Francisco DJs and Gypsy Disco Project residents playing deep, acid, soulful and Chicago styles. Promoters running events at the venue included fatcap sound and FatCap; artists who played there included Keishaboy, M27, SOBA and Nobel Filth. The original owners closed the bar in December 2023 after business slowed following the pandemic. Dawit Kidane and Gibtsawit Abraha reopened it on March 1, 2024, under new ownership.