Club 2101, a Dimond District bar open since at least 1941, unlocks around 8 a.m. — one of the only Oakland establishments serving before noon, and the daily anchor for a morning crew its regulars call the Breakfast Club.

At 2101 MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland's Dimond District, Richard Perez pulls the door open around eight on most Monday mornings and starts on the ice. The corner of MacArthur and Dimond Avenue is already loud — an AC Transit bus, construction somewhere west of the intersection — but inside the bar the first hour is quiet prep: lemon and lime wedges into the garnish trays, stools placed, the day's inventory checked. By 11 a.m. some Mondays there are more than two dozen people inside; some mornings it stays quiet through noon. Either way, Club 2101 is one of the only bars in Oakland that opens before breakfast is over.

On October 9, 1941, the Oakland Tribune published a Notice of Hearing for a cabaret license at this address — then listed as 2101 Hopkins Street, Hopkins being the previous name for this stretch of MacArthur through the Dimond. The applicant was Leo R. Wallace; the venue went on to be known as Wallace's 2101 Club, according to Oakland's LocalWiki. The address had been commercial since at least the 1920s, when a Hopkins Street Grocereria operated there; in the 1930s, M.J. Styles ran the Blue Ribbon Buffet at the same spot. By March 1947 the 2101 Club was among more than 200 Oakland bars facing potential license suspension for failing to serve food — which at minimum confirms a license was worth suspending by then. Through every ownership change after Wallace, the "2101" stayed on.

Tony and Danny Duncan bought it in 2014 and added Laurel Lounge, one neighborhood east, in 2017. Perez, 43 and Oakland-born, has worked both since 2018. On July 16, Azucena Rasilla spent sixteen hours at the bar for The Oaklandside, tracing a full day inside one of the few Oakland establishments that unlocks before noon.

The morning clientele has its own structure. About ten regulars have named themselves the Breakfast Club. Alton George Jr., 76 — a McClymonds High graduate and former Army commissioned officer — anchors the group most mornings with a standing order of Hennessy and Coke with lemon, not lime. Perez already knows. "We all sit around," George told The Oaklandside. "Sometimes we set up breakfast, and we all sit up here, eat, we talk bullshit, play pool, have a good time. I go home, go to sleep, and do it all over again the next morning."

Club 2101 isn't quite alone in this niche. Jerry McPartland, 67, a former Dimond resident who stopped in that morning to drop off paperwork for a friend, mentioned Kerry House on Piedmont Avenue to Rasilla: another bar with Depression-era operating history, open since 1939, doors unlocking at 11 a.m. Two Oakland institutions running on similar cadences for the better part of a century, each serving a clientele the rest of the city's bar schedule doesn't account for before noon.

Walking past 2101 MacArthur on a weekday morning, you'd hear the construction and the buses before you'd hear anything from inside. Through the door, the ice is already in, the garnish trays are set, and the first regular of the day is waiting on his drink.