On a busy stretch of Broadway, Awaken Café serves double duty as a coffee shop and community hub. Customers are more likely to bring a friend than a laptop, and the spot is one of the few in the area to offer free services to the general public, including use of restrooms, drinking water, and outlets for charging.

Awaken Café initially opened around the corner from its current location in 2008, but lost its lease. To stay in the neighborhood, owner/founder Cortt Dunlap turned to crowdfunding to finance the move to its current location.

Dunlap told Hoodline he experimented with a "no computers" policy before allowing laptops — and deciding against wifi. Untethered to the outside world, customers sit and chat, scribble in notebooks, or read and stare intermittently through the windows.

From the start, Dunlap said his intention was to bring Oaklanders together.

“We’re all on the same page here, but look around,” he said. Even within Oakland, “we’re separated into insular communities. What if we focused instead on local energies?”

Even as former Mayor Jerry Brown touted a plan to draw 10,000 new residents to Downtown and Jack London Square, the neighborhoods remained a ghost town at night, as if “tumbleweeds roamed the street,” said Dunlap. To give people a compelling reason to stick around after dark, he began offering live music.

“Our stage is set up to host events, and the capability to listen to what people need and want,” said Dunlap. “It’s a lot of work, but well worth it; we wanted to do something different for people to express themselves, to foster a safe space of justice at a larger level.” Record release parties and standup comics are regular occurrences, as are live musical performances.

On the second Thursday of each month, Awaken hosts Oakland Poetry Slam with Open Mic; this weekend, the space opens its doors for Bawdy Storytelling’s Bawdy Songs Festival.

Dunlap said he's "focused on what it takes to stay alive and viable" in downtown Oakland. As important as it is to provide high-quality food and drink, he's also committed to showing "the world how we as a community really work and take care of each other.”

Awaken Cafe is open Monday–Friday from 7:30–7:00, from 10–4 on Saturdays, and 10–2 on Sundays.