OAKLAND — A fire last November that destroyed the popular Horn Barbecue restaurant in West Oakland is being investigated as an arson, officials said Friday.
Oakland Fire Department spokesman Michael Hunt said investigators probing the fire found evidence indicating the blaze was deliberately set. He declined to release details about the evidence that pointed to arson.
Hunt said the department has not identified any suspects and that investigators were still looking for anyone who may have information about the fire.
The announcement marked the latest twist in a nearly six-month saga that began on Nov. 21, 2023, when a fire gutted the restaurant at 2534 Mandela Parkway.
Almost immediately, the West Oakland eatery’s owner, Matt Horn, suggested that someone had purposefully set it ablaze.
The fire charred the back and interior of the restaurant so badly that city inspectors immediately red-tagged the building, declaring it off-limits until structural concerns were addressed. At the time, Horn speculated to news outlets that the blaze may have been retribution for a social media post he’d made two days earlier, when the side of his restaurant had been tagged with graffiti.
“To you cowardly individuals responsible for this, hear me clearly: You are nothing more than the filth that plagues our beautiful city,” Horn had written on Instagram following the tagging.
The restaurant re-opened late last month at 864 8th St. in downtown Oakland, which already was the site of another of Horn’s restaurants, a happy-hour burger spot called Matty’s Old Fashioned.
During the intervening months, Horn faced multiple legal battles that left him facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements, often over claims that he stiffed a former business partner or that he failed to pay his invoices. All the while, the popular eatery received a groundswell of financial support from the community in the form of $130,000 in GoFundMe donations and $100,000 in federal COVID-19 relief funding.
In December, a judge ordered Horn to pay a $167,000 settlement to a former business partner, David Kim, who claimed that he had to work for free after helping get Horn Barbecue off the ground. Kim claimed he was then pushed out of the business.
The same day as the settlement order, Horn asked the Alameda County Board of Supervisors for $100,000 in federal COVID-19 relief funding. The request added to $488,820 in other forms of COVID-19 relief money that Horn received in recent years, including loans, grants and tax credits.
The supervisors later unanimously approved the request at a meeting in late February as part of a bulk vote that contained numerous other agenda items, including another $100,000 for a co-working and events space company named Oakstop. At least one supervisor, Nate Miley, later said he wasn’t familiar with the Horn Barbecue agenda item.
The money for Horn came from a $3.1 million pot of COVID-19 money that Supervisor Keith Carson had been given to benefit his district, which includes West Oakland and parts of North Oakland. Other supervisors received similar shares of money to help other parts of the county.
All the while, Kim’s attorneys complained that Horn appeared to be slow-walking payments from their December settlement.
Kim issued Horn a written notice in mid-February accusing him of avoiding his agreed-upon duty to either make his next payment or explain with financial documents why he could not. The pitmaster had been “particularly nefarious” in appearing to shirk issuing those payments, Kim’s attorney alleged, though the two sides ultimately reached a new payment agreement in late April.
In March, Horn also was ordered to pay $64,000 to Cooks Company Produce, a San Francisco-based distributor that sued Horn over a contract dispute. There was also an $83,000 settlement Horn owed to his former meat distributor, Golden Gate Meat Co., amid allegations of unpaid invoices.
In a reply Thursday to a comment that mentioned the arson finding on an Instagram post not related to the fire, Horn wrote: “Unfortunate to have happened. We will keep building.”
In a written statement provided Friday, Horn said, “We have full confidence in the Oakland Fire Department’s handling of the investigation into the fire at our former Horn Barbecue location on Mandela Parkway. As we focus on our newly opened location in Old Oakland, we remain committed to serving and uplifting the community. We have moved forward and will continue to keep our city in our prayers. No further comments will be made regarding this matter.”
Fire investigators ask anyone with information about the fire to contact them at 510-238-4031.
Reporter Kate Bradshaw contributed to this story.
