Bay Area

Development of Marriott Hotel Tower in Downtown Oakland Forces Closure of Uncle Wille’s BBQ, Owners Say

The family-owned business, Uncle Willie’s Original BBQ and Fish, located at 614 14th St. in downtown Oakland, has served local clientele for decades but has been forced to close by the “arrogant abuse” of the Oakland Marriott Hotel and co-developer Lew Wolff, who have been building an 18-story tower next to the restaurant, say family members.

Published

3 years ago

July 10, 2023

Oakland Post

The 18-story development by the Marriott and developer Lew Wolff dwarfs Uncle Willie’s BBQ and Fish, as well as the street view of Uncle Willie’s BBQ and Fish on 14th Street in downtown Oakland. Post file photo.

By Post Staff

The project, which began building several years ago, will provide 276 new guest rooms across from the Elihu M. Harris State Office Building at 1431 Jefferson St.
Family members have now filed a lawsuit against Wolff and the Marriott, saying that during construction of the building, debris, including dangerous objects and dust, have fallen from the building project into the restaurant’s courtyard eating area, forcing Uncle Willie’s to close.

Originally, family members had supported the development. “We were looking forward to (the development), but they didn’t really give us any consideration,” said a family member. “We were assured that during this development, our business and our property wouldn’t be impacted. That just wasn’t the reality.”
Uncle Willie’s was located in the city’s Black Arts Movement Business District, which was created by the city in 2016 to support and encourage small Black businesses in the downtown area, but the city never implemented the resolution.

Uncle Willie, a Parish, Texas, native, moved to Oakland in 1970 after serving in Air Force during the Vietnam War. He passed his seasoning, smoking meats and homemade BBQ sauce-making skills to his son Craig Jones and nephew Nichalas Breland, who make ribs, brisket, chicken, and homemade beef links.
“My dad, when he was transitioning, his last few words to me were, ‘Protect and keep what we have,’ and that’s what I’m trying do,” said Craig Jones in an interview with NBC Bay Area.
In a Youtube video, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh8sN1KEELk), family members tell how they lost their ‘legacy.’

According to news reports, Wolff is chairman & CEO of Wolff Urban Development, LLC, a real estate acquisition, investment, development, and management firm. Since 1994, Wolff has served as chairman of Maritz, Wolff & Co., a privately held hotel investment group that owns and manages assets for top-tier luxury hotels, with over $1.0 billion of assets under management.

Since 1968, Wolff has developed over 4,000,000 square feet of urban real estate, including hotels, office space, retail, town homes, and commercial parking properties.
By the Oakland Post’s deadline, the newspaper had not received a reply for a request for a comment from Wolff or Marriott.