From the early 1960s through mid-1980s, the preeminent rock ‘n’ roll club in California’s Orange Country was the Golden Bear. The intimate venue across from the Huntington Beach pier played host to artists ranging from Janis Joplin and Neil Young to Patti Smith and Steve Martin to Lone Justice and local-kids-made-good No Doubt. It was closed down for redevelopment in 1986, leaving a hole in the O.C. scene that has subsequently been filled somewhat, but not entirely, by clubs like the Coach House and the Grove of Anaheim.
Now there are plans to bring the Golden Bear back to life, not as the seaside dive it once was, but as an intimate corner of OCVibe, a 100-acre entertainment and dining complex that is soon to be built in Anaheim on what are now paved parking lots adjacent to the Honda Center.
Representatives for the project are announcing plans for the entire complex at an event nearby in Anaheim Wednesday night. Some of the principals behind the new Golden Bear and the huge campus that will surround it offered a preview of their ideas for the reincarnated club to Variety prior to the gala unveiling — and brought the original club’s final owner, Carole Babiracki-Kirby, into the conversation as well.