Chef-owner Ben Block turned the slowest night at his Lakeshore BBQ-latke-cheesecake spot into a weekly karaoke draw, and says Monday sales are up about 30%.

On Monday nights at Crazy Block Cheesecakes, 3355 Lakeshore Ave. in Oakland, the deal is simple: sing a song, take 10% off your check. Sing the most songs of anyone in the room and you leave with a free mini cheesecake. It is a promotion chef-owner Ben Block built for one reason — Monday was killing him.

Every operator knows the weekday slump, the flat night when the door stops swinging and the labor still has to be paid. Block's answer was a microphone. He told Berkeleyside's East Bay Nosh that he launched the karaoke night on his slowest day to pull people in, and that it worked: he estimates Monday sales are up roughly 30% since the promotion started, which the restaurant dates to late last year.

The room itself is an unlikely bet. Block opened the brick-and-mortar in March 2025 around a scratch-made menu that folds barbecue, potato latkes and cheesecake into what he calls "celebration foods" — his family's Jewish-holiday latkes, his grandmother's cheesecake, the brisket he first smoked on a backyard Weber in Alameda in 2020. That combination on the sign confused the Lakeshore neighborhood before it won it over. He worked his way up through pop-ups, farmers markets and brewery gigs before signing the lease.

The prices tell you it is built for regulars, not occasions: a brisket sandwich on a Grand Bakery challah bun runs $15, the "chiblam" plate of chicken, brisket and smoked lamb $27.99. The restaurant is open Mondays and Wednesday through Sunday.

Across the East Bay, rooms are throwing bingo, comedy and watch parties at the same problem. Block's version has produced something more durable than a discount — a Monday crowd of karaoke regulars who now treat a barbecue counter as their weeknight bar.