A Look Back

Jerry Person

In the last few weeks I have been asked by several people if I knew

where the old Golden Bear was located and who played there.

Since it will be six years since I first wrote about the “Bear” I

think I’ll update that story with some new material.

There were two Golden Bears people remember in Huntington Beach. The

first began at 226 Main St. as a cafe in 1922 run by chef Harry Bakre.

He called his little cafe the Golden Lion, after one in San Diego that

he had worked as a chef. But because there was another cafe by that name

in Orange County, he changed the name to the Golden Bear.

Around 1925 Bakre and his wife Elsie moved the restaurant to a small

building at 310 Pacific Coast Highway.

Bakre enlarged the building to include 306 PCH in 1929 to the size most remember. Harry and Elsie contemplated adding a second story for a

hotel and they planned to call it the Golden Bear Hotel. But it never

materialized, although the cafe served to house the homeless just after

the earthquake of 1933.

The second Golden Bear began life as a nightclub in 1974 by Charles

and Rick Babiracki.

These two would turn a shop-worn building into a world-famous night

spot. Many famous names would begin their careers on their stage.

The variety of musical talent would today rival any Las Vegas

showroom.

On stage were musicians of all different styles including jazz, swing,

Spanish guitar, western swing, heavy metal, blues and punk.

On its stage were beginning performers like Jimmy Hendrix, Linda

Ronstadt, Janis Joplin, B.B. King and Bob Dylan. Fifth Street businessman

Mike Morgan remembers an original Hawaiian group Cecila and Kapana and

the band Honk. He remembers that John Mayo, Steve Miller, Taj Mahal and

Jethro Tull played there.

Some other names that graced the boards were Hoyt Axton, Doc

Severinsen, Marty Ingles and Oingo Bongo.

Blues artists included John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Albert King.

Steppenwolf appeared graced the stage and you didn’t bring your

grandmother from Iowa when Lenny Bruce appeared.

Before it closed Steve Martin took the entire audience outside and

down to the pier to heckle the fishermen in January of 1986.

Less known artists included The Dreggs, Love & Terror, Desperate

Living, the Squares, Type, Stronghold, One, Public Contact, Vision and

Radieux. There was Los Lobos and the Blasters too.

The last to perform on the stage before it became a memory was Robin

Trower, Phoebe Snow and Taj Mahal.

The Golden Bear was demolished by the owners on May 18, 1986.

One of the owners, Dick Schwartz, had some of the bricks and wood

beams transported to his home in Thousand Oaks for a deck.

But the legend of the Golden Bear grows stronger every day and maybe

one day I’ll be walking Downtown and look up to see the image of it

staring back at me.