It’s All Good Bakery, the neighborhood spot tucked inside what was once the Black Panther Party’s first Oakland headquarters, has gone quiet. The longtime shop abruptly closed this month, its windows covered in brown paper and a sign on the door thanking customers for roughly three decades of support. Owner Kim Cloud opened the bakery in 1996 and turned it into a go-to stop for Southern-style sweets and community gatherings. Now, the corner at 5622 Martin Luther King Jr. Way is still, as regulars wait to see what, if anything, comes next.
According to The Oaklandside, photos from the scene show brown paper over the windows and printed notices on the door that read, "we are permanently closed. Thank you for 30 years of support!" The outlet also described Black Panther memorabilia still visible inside the shuttered shop, and noted that no formal public statement from staff had been posted when a reporter stopped by.
Neighborhood staple and signature treats
Cloud launched the bakery in 1996 and built a loyal following around classic Southern desserts, including sweet potato pies, pecan pies, peach cobblers, snickerdoodles, and the shop’s signature 7-Up pound cake, according to the bakery’s website. The cases, along with steady wholesale orders, made It’s All Good a regular fixture at birthdays, funerals, and catered events across the East Bay. Over the years, customers praised the spot as much for its role in preserving local stories as for the sugar highs it reliably delivered.
Site’s political history
The unassuming storefront sits on historic ground. In 1967, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton opened the Black Panther Party’s first official office at this address, a fact now highlighted on local walking tours and by museum guides who point out the building’s past. The ALENA Museum’s R3 walking tour and an Atlas Obscura entry both document the site’s significance in Panther history, as well as the bakery’s interior tribute wall lined with archival newspapers and photographs.
Redevelopment and permits complicate the picture
The property has been entangled in redevelopment plans for years. A proposal to tear down the low-rise storefronts and replace them with a five-story mixed-use building combining apartments and commercial space drew wide attention in 2022. In a 2022 redevelopment story, the property owner said the project was designed to include room for the bakery in the new building.
City documents reviewed by The Oaklandside indicate that in April 2025, planners asked the development team to complete an unfinished application and prepare a focused environmental impact report, a step that could further delay any construction timeline. For now, the future of the building, and of the famous dessert counter that once operated inside it, remains tied up in that bureaucratic slow lane.
Neighbors say goodbye
Once word of the closure slipped out, neighborhood forums and social media threads filled up fast. Longtime customers swapped photos of birthday cakes and holiday pies, shared recipes that tried to mimic the bakery’s flavors, and mourned what they see as the loss of a community anchor. A Reddit neighborhood discussion drew dozens of comments from people who said they grew up visiting It’s All Good, and who were caught off guard by how suddenly the doors were locked.
It is still not clear whether the bakery might reopen in a temporary space or eventually return inside a new development at the site. The owner previously told reporters he wanted any project to honor the building’s history and said he was working with the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation on preservation efforts, as reported in a 2022 interview about the site. Neither city planning staff nor the property owner has released an updated timeline, leaving neighbors, preservation advocates, and pastry loyalists waiting on the next round of filings and public hearings.
