Oakland’s Favorite Late-Night Soul Food Chef Dies in a Tragic Accident

Carl Bolling, the chef-owner of Oakland’s Dimond Kitchen, a popular soul food restaurant, died on May 30 after a tragic motorcycle accident. He was 47 years old.

For years, Bolling had wanted nothing more than to share his cooking with the world, and it seemed like he was finally living out his dream: The chef’s late-night sidewalk pop-ups in downtown Oakland were the stuff of legend, and for the past year, he’d set up shop inside MacArthur Boulevard’s Two Star Market convenience store six days a week. In recent months, the bustling takeout spot, known as Dimond Kitchen, had earned a reputation as one of the Bay Area’s best soul food restaurants.

Now, Bolling’s family says it will be up to them to carry on the chef’s legacy. His daughter, Kelaija Bolling, says she and Bolling’s girlfriend, Mone Godfrey, plan to reopen Dimond Kitchen in the same location later this month. The idea is to continue serving all of Bolling’s original recipes — his decadently juicy smothered pork chops, succulent fried chicken wings, and tender and potent collard greens.

“One thing I always remember my dad saying was, ‘One day I might not be there,’” Kelaija says, recalling the times she used to help out at the shop. “‘So make sure you try all the food. Make sure you write down the recipes.’”

Bolling, who was born and raised in Oakland, is survived by 11 children, ranging in age from seven months to 28 years old. Kelaija, 25, is a college student at Cal State East Bay. She and two of her siblings were waiting to meet Bolling at the restaurant at around 6 p.m. on May 30 when someone ran into the store saying their dad had been in a motorcycle accident just down the street, near the 2101 Club bar.

The family initially feared it was a hit-and-run, but Kelaija says Oakland police told them both drivers were at fault. An ambulance rushed Bolling to the hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. He died just a few hours later.

According to Kelaija, Bolling was a family-oriented man, regularly hosting game nights and organizing family trips to Disney World and Great America. More than anything, she remembers his lifelong passion for food.

“During the holidays — Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter — people always came to eat my dad’s cooking,” Kelaija says. “He didn’t play about his cooking. Everybody loved his food.”

Eventually, Bolling decided to give running his own food business a shot. Kelaija says it all started when he tried a plate of hot links from a street festival vendor. “My dad was a real foodie person, like Gordon Ramsay,” Kelaija says. If he ate something he didn’t think was up to snuff, he’d call it like it was — and after tasting those mediocre hot links, Bolling started thinking he could do better himself. In 2018, he started doing late-night pop-ups in downtown Oakland as a side hustle, selling mostly barbecue at first before expanding the menu to include other soul food dishes.

Kelaija, who would often help out with these informal sidewalk pop-ups, recalls they’d often sell food until as late as 3 or 4 a.m., after the bars and clubs let out. Bolling touted himself as the Bay Area’s only late-night soul food chef, and parlayed his pop-up success into a thriving catering business and, in the spring of 2024, the launch of his first brick-and-mortar spot.

As it turned out, I profiled the late-night scene at Dimond Kitchen only two months before Bolling’s death but never had a chance to have a proper conversation with the chef. I remember the first time I visited the restaurant, Bolling had apologized that there was a long wait — and threw in an extra side of (incredibly delicious) candied yams to make up for it. Before that, I’d watched him chat with an older gentleman who kept asking for a plate, promising he’d have the money to pay for it in the morning. “I’m good for it,” the man kept saying. “You’re killing me,” Bolling responded drily. But he hooked the guy up in the end.

According to Kelaija, that kind of generosity was her father’s hallmark. One of her favorite memories took place just a few weeks before his death. The two of them had just finished up service for the night when Bolling told her they were going to pack up all their leftover food so they could pass it out to unhoused folks on International Boulevard. “He would do that regularly,” she says. “That’s why a lot of people loved my dad and why they had so much respect for him.”

And that’s the spirit of hospitality that Kelaija says she and Bolling’s girlfriend now hope they’ll be able to help carry on. Bolling’s family has started a GoFundMe to raise money to keep Dimond Kitchen going — and eventually, she hopes, to launch a food truck or larger sit-down restaurant bearing her father’s name. While the takeout counter inside Two Star Market is currently closed, Kelaija says she’s hoping to reopen it sometime in the next couple of weeks. She’s already started picking up some catering gigs.

“I feel like [my father] would want us to continue it because that’s what his passion was — to expand the business even further,” Kelaija says. “Because he was still in the process of getting his name out there.”