Mama's Royal Cafe, Too

Huevos Rancheros lunch for Susan Ford

After 37 years, Mama's Royal Cafe in Oakland is closing.

The Urban Sketchers visited this Bay Area institution one more time and bid a sad farewell to the 1950s aprons and melamine teacup displays, the paper napkin art, the Huevos Rancheros!

While we were eating and sketching, one of the owners wandered about with a contractor, and in that moment, demise was palpable. If you love this place like we do, go NOW before you drive by one day and see an empty hole where Mama used to be! It's imminent and if you think someone's going to buy it and carry on Mama's fine and funky tradition, you misunderstand capitalism.

Mama's Royal Cafe, Oakland

Lunch sketching today at the venerable Mama's Royal Cafe on 40th and Broadway, serving breakfast, brunch and lunch 7 days a week since 1974.  I think I have been a customer almost that long!  We hear it is being sold.  I hope the new owners keep the eclectic decor, including a large collection of radios, a wall of aprons-- and of course the display of "paper napkin art" from their annual contest.