The Golden Bear revisited

A LOOK BACK

I was approached by one of the managers of the new Hyatt resort

seeking information about the Golden Bear’s musical history.

I was told that the Hyatt was thinking about opening a new Golden

Bear in its entertainment complex. There are still many of you who

remember the Golden Bear as a musical nightclub, forgetting that the

Golden Bear started as an upscale restaurant.

This week I’m going to take you back to those early years when its

original owner, Harry Bakre, opened a modest little cafe at 226 Main

St. called the Golden Lion Cafe in 1922. It was soon afterward that

Bakre learned that there was another cafe operating in Orange County

under that name. To keep on the right side of the law, Bakre changed

his cafe’s name to the Golden Bear Cafe.

Bakre had been a chef at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, the

Main Street Cafe in Los Angeles, the Barbara Worth Hotel in El Centro

and at San Diego’s Red Lion. So you see, Bakre knew his way around a

kitchen.

When Bakre opened here, we were starting our famous oil boom

years, and with three shifts of oil workers a day needing to be fed,

his little cafe prospered. It wasn’t long before Harry relocated his

cafe to 310 Ocean Ave., now Pacific Coast Highway, where he now had a

beautiful ocean view. That was in April 1926.

Harry bought the lot next door at 306 Ocean Ave. and began

building an addition onto his modest cafe. When it was finished, it

would attract travelers from all parts of the country.

In June 1929, his $40,000 stucco and tile building was ready for

public inspection. Inside, he had constructed a large square dining

room, a banquet room, a lunch counter and one of the most modern soda

fountains anywhere along our coast. Being a chef at heart, he had

constructed a large kitchen with all the most modern fixtures. The

cafe had a seating capacity of 250, which was large for our small

beach town of the time.

The outside reflected the Spanish-style look of the period, and

this look was carried inside. The floors were made of maple. It was

Bakre’s idea to have the banquet tables lowered through a side trap

door into the cafe’s basement so people could use the floor at night

for dancing.

Ever since his first cafe on Main Street, Bakre’s claims to fame

were his aged steaks and fresh fish and seafood. He had installed

special cooling pipes that ran through his refrigerator to keep the

lobsters, crabs, abalone and fish fresh.

Bakre and his assistant chef, Sam Pappas, ran the back of the cafe

while Bakre’s wife, Elsie, ran the front. Ruth Garland, Peggy Reed

and Beatrice Biscailuz were hired as the cafe’s waitresses.

Harry had members of the Long Beach Orchestra brought down to play

for his guests on the official opening day.

Everything was ready for the Saturday grand opening on June 29,

1929. The Golden Bear would become a place to have meetings, and

several of our local clubs had their meetings in the banquet room.

The Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce held many a meeting in that

building and at time would hold meetings out on the front sidewalks

on Pacific Coast Highway.

In July 1930, Bakre contemplated building a second story on top of

the cafe to be known as the Golden Bear Hotel, but the Great

Depression was beginning, and the hotel was never built. If it had

been built, it would have been the first such beach resort complex in

Huntington Beach -- long before the Hilton or the Hyatt came on the

scene.

During World War II, soldiers were a familiar sight at the Golden

Bear.

With food in short supply, many people didn’t have the money to

buy food to feed their families. Louie Magana, the Golden Bear’s

dishwasher, would bring leftover breads and foods to those in need

here, Huntington Beach resident Robert Espitia said. Louie was making

about 25 cents an hour, but he cared about people, Espitia said.

Bakre ran the cafe through the 1940s and retired on May 10, 1951.

During those golden years, the restaurant served as a rendezvous for

many of our local lovers, who sat at a table in the Golden Bear

holding hands and looking longingly in each others eyes while

enjoying one of Bakre’s special dinners.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington

Beach resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at

P.O. Box 7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.