Mired in debt, Oakland’s Horn Barbecue hit by massive fire

A massive fire ravaged West Oakland’s Horn Barbecue early Tuesday morning, leaving the building unsafe for occupation, according to Michael Hunt, a spokesperson for the Oakland Fire Department. 

The fire started around 4:19 a.m. at 2534 Mandela Parkway, and firefighters contained it within 30 minutes, Hunt told SFGATE. No employees had been cooking when the fire started, according to Hunt. There were no injuries, and the fire didn’t spread to other businesses or properties in the area. Officials are still determining if the building is salvageable. 

The cause of the fire is under investigation, according to Hunt, although Carroll Fife, a councilmember who represents West Oakland, raised the possibility of arson when speaking with the San Francisco Chronicle (the Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms). She told the publication she’d heard from the Horn family, which owns the restaurant, who said the fire looked “very intentional.” Neither Fife nor chef Matt Horn immediately responded to requests for comment from SFGATE. 

Those financial woes have only grown, according to public records. In 2023 alone, Horn Barbecue was subject to financial judgments of over $300,000, including debts to suppliers Bi-Rite, Golden Gate Meat Co. and GrubMarket totaling over $260,000. Jonni Graves, vice president of Golden Gate Meat, told SFGATE that the company has not received any payments from Horn on the $73,000 he currently owes. The other suppliers did not immediately respond to questions from SFGATE. 

In May of this year, the state of California ordered Horn Barbecue to pay over $47,000 in back taxes, according to public records. Both of Matt Horn’s other restaurants — Kowbird, which opened in January 2022, and Matty’s Old Fashioned, which opened in July of this year — are also in debt, according to public filings. On Nov. 8, Kowbird was hit with a state tax lien for debts totaling nearly $34,000.

Fire department spokesperson Hunt declined to speculate on claims that the fire was intentional, citing the ongoing investigation.

“We’re really trying to just get to the bottom of the cause of the fire,” he told SFGATE. “We can’t really draw any conclusions until we know more about what sparked this fire in the first place.”

SFGATE Politics Editor Alex Shultz contributed to this report.