From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Dec 14 2009 - 15:15:27 EST
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oakland/ci_13972695
Night Owl: Downtown Oakland gets a taste of Para Diso with new club
By Angela Woodall
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 12/10/2009 07:09:43 PM PST
Updated: 12/11/2009 06:56:04 AM PST
OAKLAND — Paradiso. The Italian word for paradise evokes bliss, delight,
felicity and any number of bars sharing the title of the third part of
Dante's "Divine Comedy."
Paradiso also happens to be the moniker of a newly opened downtown Oakland
lounge named for a district of Asmara — the capital city of Eritrea, where
the owners are from.
"It's a fun, social place to kick it and mingle, similar to the Uptown
District," co-owner Mesfin Semere said. He meant the neighborhood in Asmara
as well as the new lounge, which is written Para Diso and aimed at
attracting what he called the "melting pot" of Oakland's up-and-coming
classy professional people.
The Web site describes Para Diso lounge as "the new upscale and urban
hangout providing you with two full bars, two dance floors complete with
soundproof walls "... and two big-screen TVs, making it a perfect space to
relax and watch the game after a long day's work, mingling, or kicking off
your shoes and dancing to the beats of the spinning DJ."
But they let me in, and I don't have a beautiful, classy or "up-and-coming"
stamp on my ID card, although they might actually change the rule about
shoes if I tried to kick off mine.
Para Diso's predecessor was pickier. Vibe accepted (in the spiritual sense)
only gay, lesbian or African-American patrons. That's fine by me (I just
can't do anything about not being gay, lesbian or black), but the selection
process evidently limited business.
Vibe closed during the summer, and Semere, 30, and co-owner Yonatan Hagos,
37, took over in September. The grand opening isn't for another couple of
weeks, though the lounge has been operating on weekends on a limited basis.
Para Diso definitely was open Dec. 4 for the First Friday gallery crawl.
Semere and Hagos had installed a ska/punk/'80s hip-hop band to celebrate
approval of their cabaret license and to draw in the crowds clustered around
Telegraph Avenue and 23rd Street. The second-floor bar-dance floor combo was
empty, but the lounge downstairs was covered in people.
Not only do I not have a "classy" ID card, but I didn't even know the place
was in operation. The cabaret permit hearing was Dec. 3, and often more than
just weeks pass before a club finally opens. I ended up there because my
boyfriend had found his way to the bar and a squat bottle of Red Stripe
beer.
Hagos and Semere said they always had talked about opening a club in
Oakland, but the pace with which it happened — right in the middle of the
recession — surprised even them. It was the right place at a right enough
time, so to speak.
"The opportunity came, and we jumped on it," Hagos said. "Sometimes you just
have to bite the bullet."
The old friends bit off a mouthful, investing thousands to spruce up the
lounge and add little touches, like the backlit liquor shelves behind the
bar.
Semere nevertheless nearly swaggers with confidence about the success he
anticipates for Para Diso. He knows people, as they say, and has a phone
list from his 12 years as a Bay Area promoter and bartender.
"I'm a social animal. I like to go out," he said. Better everyone gather at
Para Diso than at his nearby pad, which is where he said friends ended up
after hours anyway.
"I would die if you put me in a cubicle," he said, convincingly.
It also helps that the men are strands in a web of business and family
relationships that stretches from Ninth Street to the Temescal district. And
they are members of the Ethiopian and Eritrean expat community in Oakland,
one of the largest in the United States.
Semere left Asmara 12 years ago to avoid military service out of a
preference for living peacefully with people from Ethiopia instead of
helping to prolong simmering tensions between the two East African
neighbors. Here he began his career as a bartender and promoter after
meeting D'Wayne Wiggins at the singer's Java House cafe near Lake Merritt.
Hagos left Eritrea at age 11 for Los Angeles and came to the Bay Area in
1991 to study economics at UC Berkeley. These days he works as a software
product manager.
By night, he and Semere are providing a much-needed density to downtown and
helping to push the boundaries of the entertainment district farther and
farther south from the epicenter near the Fox Theater.
"It's just sort of a natural progress as Oakland matures and politicians see
the value of business and restaurants that actually attract younger people,"
Hagos said. If managed properly, the success in one sector can translate
into overall prosperity for Oakland, he added.
"It's time to recognize how beautiful this city is," he said.
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