.Best Deals on Breakfast at 3 a.m. While Playing Cards

Perhaps the East Bay’s closest thing to an East Coast diner or greasy
spoon is the Emeryville institution the Oaks Corner, which is attached
to the Oaks Card Club. Named after the former Oakland Oaks minor-league
Pacific Coast baseball team and located on the actual site of the Oaks
Park baseball stadium, at the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Park
Street, the Oaks has been serving players and diners for more than
fifty years. It’s a sports bar, hofbrau, Asian restaurant, and
24-hour diner, all wrapped into one faux-panelled,
tacky-green-carpeted, Fifties-style people-watching paradise. The real
deal special is for the hungry players and high rollers next door in
the sunken, somewhat seedy card room. Players seated at the tables can
receive a 25 percent discount while playing poker. High rollers (if you
have to ask, you’re not one) get a whopping 50 percent off any menu
item while gambling. Your basic bacon and eggs with a choice of hash
browns, steamed rice, or grits and toast goes for an already low $4.75.
Nonplaying customers can signal one of the roving waitresses in green
vests and ask for the late-night menu after midnight.