Eli's Mile High Club, the legendary but long-troubled music venue in West Oakland, has announced it will close its doors at the end of October. The bar built its name on a weekly Monday night blues showcase and shows spanning numerous genres, but owners say the club has not turned a profit in years and now operates at a huge loss.
Co-owner Matthew Patane made that admission in comments reported by the Bay Area News Group, which first reported the closure. The trouble traces back to Oakland officials closing Eli's large back patio in 2024, a space the club had hosted customers in for years. Patane said the city had not objected during the club's seven years of patio operations, but the venue has operated day-to-day since November 2024 without it — a loss the owners say wiped out more than 60 percent of the club's business.
The patio closure followed a complaint filed with the City of Oakland by a nearby property owner, according to the same report. City officials have said Eli's lacked the zoning required to have a back patio in the first place. That regulatory dispute lines up with earlier reporting: in April 2025, SFGATE reported that Greg Barron, who owns commercial property directly behind the club, had filed a civil lawsuit that February alleging $166,960 in damage from unpermitted back patio structures he claimed diverted rainwater into his building's roof and foundation.
City Cited Ignored Stop-Work Orders
City of Oakland spokesperson Jean Walsh said in an email reported by SFGATE that municipal officials red-tagged the patio over safety and encroachment issues tied to unpermitted structures, after multiple stop-work orders on ongoing two-story construction went ignored. The dispute pits a private property damage claim against a public safety and permitting rationale, and both accounts point to the same outcome: the patio came down, and the club's finances have not recovered.
Eli's owners are now asking patrons and music fans to contact Oakland officials in support of the club, urging supporters to write to the Oakland City Council and the mayor's office. The owners say the club represents 50 years of community culture and plan to keep working toward reopening, though they say continuous community support will be needed to keep the effort going.
A Half-Century of Highs and Lows
The building at what is now 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way has a history stretching back nearly a century before it became a music venue. According to the The E'ville Eye News, the building originally opened as Cow Bell Dairy in 1931 and later housed a fountain cafe, a shoe repair shop, and a barbecue restaurant before Eli Thornton opened the venue in 1974. At the time, the street was still called Grove Street; the city renamed it Martin Luther King Jr. Way in 1984, according to the Oakland Review of Books.
The club's history has never been simple. Founder and namesake Elijah “Eli” Thornton was shot and killed inside the bar in 1979 during an altercation with his girlfriend, blues singer Frankie Williams, according to KQED. Under second owner Troyce Key, who bought the venue in 1980 and ran it until his death in 1992, Eli's hosted artists including Etta James and James Brown, per SFGATE's earlier reporting.
The venue has weathered financial woes, closures, ownership changes, and major drama over several decades, and last year's fight over the patio drew high-profile support. Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong publicly backed Eli's in March 2025, donating to and promoting a $150,000 GoFundMe campaign, according to Pollstar News. Armstrong's band had played a secret 2013 set at the club under the pseudonym Foxboro Hot Tubs, underscoring its deep ties to Bay Area punk musicians as well as blues history. The patio was closed, and the club suffered financially.
Part of a Wider Squeeze on Oakland Venues
Eli's current co-owners, Matthew Patane and Billy Joe Agan, have also worked to preserve other Oakland nightlife landmarks; in July 2022, the pair partnered with festival organizer Marc Ribak to reopen the historic Thee Stork Club dive bar on Telegraph Avenue, as Hoodline reported in its Stork Club reopening story. Eli's itself has also served as a host venue for citywide events like the Drunken Film Fest in years past.
The looming closure fits a broader pattern of pressure on Oakland's independent music venues. The New Parish on San Pablo Avenue is another long-standing live music hall in Oakland. That closure came amid the broader squeeze on Oakland nightlife venues. For now, Eli's owners are hoping the same kind of community pressure that drew Armstrong's support last year can be mustered once more before the end of October.
