Newport: Home of the Back Bay and back bar

The next time the city gets around to designating a historical site,

it should consider the town’s oldest saloon -- Stark’s. Considering

the history and personality of the town, Stark’s should have at least

equal billing with McFadden’s Wharf.

Opened in 1902 by Henry Stark on that funny little half-block

known as 21st Street, it was a familiar and popular watering hole and

site of the town’s oldest running poker game until some time in the

1950s. In 1960, Sid Soffer bought the place and renamed it Sid’s Blue

Beet.

From the time Henry Stark opened it until Prohibition, it was just

a plain old saloon and poker game except for one thing ... it’s back

bar. Allegedly brought from Cripple Creek, it was a magnificent back

bar and would compare favorably with the back bars in such places as

Virginia City and Leadville. I really don’t know what it did during

Prohibition. I lived in Balboa at the time and know nothing of the

drinking habits of Newporters.

However, if Newport treated Prohibition with the same lofty

disdain as did Balboa, it probably continued its pre-Prohibition

ways.

Be that as it may, I became aware of the place in 1936 when I was

a Newport Beach policeman. I ate all my meals there. Shorty Charlie,

with whom I had worked at the Rendezvous, was the bartender and

waiter and cook. One night, a guy was giving me some lip and Shorty

decked him. From that time on, Stark’s was the place I ate my meals.

In the meantime, Tom Carlson had opened his Stag Saloon next door

to Stark’s. A woman called Dollar Dolly frequented both places. I

don’t even want to speculate on the origin of her name.

In the back of each, the Stag and Stark’s, was a poker game, a

24-hour poker game. When the bars closed at 2 a.m., they simply

closed the door between the bar and the poker game and the game went

on until the bar opened later in the morning.

Now, having made my pitch about making Stark’s a historical site,

the picture gets a little fuzzy.

As I said, in 1960 Sid bought the place from Henry Stark’s heirs

and named it Sid’s Blue Beet -- keeping that grand old back bar. Then

Sid closed the Blue Beet and moved to Costa Mesa where he became the

town’s official hair shirt -- something about too many cars parked in

his yard. He leased the place to a series of eateries and during that

period the place burned to the ground.

The back bar was damaged. Here the story gets even more fuzzy.

Apparently, Sid took the old back bar out of the place and

replaced it with the present back bar. He took the original back bar

to his present anonymous cocktail bar restaurant on old Newport

Boulevard, the site of Whiskey Bill’s saloon. Here, he is busy

refurbishing the original bar.

And here the story gets even more fuzzy. Sid still owns the land

and building located on the site of Stark’s. It has reopened as Sid’s

Blue Beet. Sid went into business with his new tenant. They have

parted company and are involved in litigation so complex that even

Chief Justice John Marshall couldn’t possibly comprehend it.

However, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Sid tells me that

when -- not if -- he wins his lawsuit and regains possession of the

place, he is going to return to it the original back bar refurbished

to its original grandeur.

Now when -- not if -- that happens, the city should consider some

kind of plaque stating not only that it is the site of the own’s

oldest saloon, but also the site of the town’s oldest running poker

game. And they might even drop a footnote about Dollar Dolly.

Of course, as I write this, Susie Shaw has thrown Sid back into

the slammer -- about those dratted cars in his front yard. Thus,

unless the jail authorities decide to give Sid some kind of work

furlough release to continue his refurbishing of the old back bar,

the city may have to wait awhile before considering the idea of

putting a plaque on the place.

* ROBERT GARDNER was a judge and longtime Newport Beach resident.