From Waterbeds to the Rolling Stones
The Incredible History of Solana Beach’s Belly Up Tavern
Greg Ross
CEO / Owner - Nancy's Vacation Rentals
It started in an old Quonset hut with ping-pong tables, pickled eggs and no stage. Fifty years later, the Rolling Stones, B.B. King, Willie Nelson, Etta James and hundreds of other legendary performers had passed through its doors.
There are music venues where you go because of who's playing.
And then there are music venues that become part of the experience themselves.
The Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach is unquestionably the latter.
Hidden among the shops, galleries and design businesses along Cedros Avenue is a rather ordinary-looking Quonset hut.
From outside, you'd never guess what has happened inside.
The Rolling Stones played there.
So did B.B. King.
Willie Nelson.
Etta James.
John Lee Hooker.
George Clinton.
The Neville Brothers.
No Doubt.
The Black Eyed Peas.
Maroon 5.
Jack Johnson.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
And the list goes on.
But the Belly Up didn't begin as a famous music venue.
In fact, it didn't even have a stage.
Before Rock & Roll, There Were Waterbeds
The Belly Up story begins in the summer of 1974.
Friends Dave Hodges and Greg Gilholm had been looking for a location for their dream bar when they discovered an available Quonset hut on Cedros Avenue in Solana Beach.
The previous tenant?
A waterbed manufacturing and showroom business.
The waterbed company had gone out of business, leaving the unusual industrial building available.
That failure apparently helped inspire the name of the new establishment.
The previous business had gone "belly up."
Friends were also skeptical that Hodges and Gilholm's new bar would survive.
Rather than shy away from the prediction, they embraced it.
They called their new place:
The Belly Up Tavern.
September 28, 1974: The Belly Up Opens
The Belly Up officially opened on September 28, 1974 — Dave Hodges' birthday.
Even the original sign had personality.
It was fashioned from the end of an old wooden cable spool, giving it a circular shape that coincidentally looked a little like a giant record.
But anyone walking through the doors in 1974 wouldn't have recognized the concert venue we know today.
There wasn't a stage.
There wasn't a sophisticated sound system.
And live music wasn't the main attraction.
It was essentially a neighborhood hangout.
The Belly Up Was Originally a Dating Bar
Greg Gilholm later described the early Belly Up as something of a "dating bar."
It was initially licensed only for beer and wine.
There were red-felt pool tables.
Chess and checkers.
Pinball machines.
Ping-pong tables occupied the area where the stage would eventually stand.
And according to the Belly Up's own history, the club even had what it describes as the first Pong video game in California.
Hungry?
The early menu included Polish sausage sandwiches and pickled eggs.
There was also one surprisingly serious management rule.
Keep the bathrooms spotless.
Gilholm later credited that policy as one of the small details that contributed to the bar's success.
Then Someone Had an Idea: Let’s Have a Band Play
Everything changed on February 18, 1976.
A bluegrass group called Squatters Last Rights became the first band to perform at the Belly Up.
There was still one obvious problem.
There was no stage.
So they moved the ping-pong tables out of the way and the band performed in the space.
The experiment worked.
People liked live music.
Hodges started looking for more bands.
Using scrap material left behind from the building's waterbed-manufacturing days, he constructed a small stage.
The Belly Up Tavern was beginning its transformation.
Blues, Bluegrass and Rock & Roll
The earliest years of Belly Up music leaned heavily toward blues, bluegrass and rock.
In December 1976, legendary blues musicians Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee performed on the club's newly constructed low stage.
More musicians followed.
The bar gradually developed a reputation as a place where serious performers could play in an unusually intimate room.
That intimacy would eventually become one of the Belly Up's greatest advantages.
Even today, the venue holds only around 600 people.
There aren't many places where you can stand just a few feet from a performer who might normally fill a theater, amphitheater or arena.
And Then Came the Shark
If you've been inside the Belly Up, you've probably noticed something hanging above the crowd.
A giant shark.
That shark dates all the way back to 1977.
According to the club's history, Dave Hodges constructed the large papier-mâché shark partly as a way of confronting his fear of great white sharks.
Decades later, it still hangs inside.
It's a wonderfully appropriate symbol for the Belly Up:
A little strange.
A little homemade.
And somehow still there after all these years.
The Little Quonset Hut Starts Attracting Legends
As the Belly Up's reputation grew, the names appearing on the marquee became increasingly impressive.
Blues legends including John Lee Hooker, Etta James and B.B. King became part of the club's history.
Curtis Mayfield performed there.
George Clinton made his first Belly Up appearance in 1989.
The Neville Brothers became repeat visitors.
Toots and the Maytals played the room repeatedly.
The club's musical identity expanded beyond its blues and bluegrass roots into reggae, soul, rock and eventually almost every imaginable genre.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers Played for About 200 People
Here's where Belly Up history becomes particularly fun.
Some performers appeared there before they became enormous.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers played the club in 1985 for an audience of roughly 200 people.
Imagine being one of them.
Years later, the Chili Peppers would return for the kind of intimate "underplay" that has become another Belly Up tradition — major artists deliberately performing in a room dramatically smaller than the venues they normally play.
No Doubt Before the Arenas
On May 29, 1994, No Doubt played the Belly Up.
This was before Tragic Kingdom transformed the Anaheim band into international stars.
That's another part of the Belly Up's magic.
Sometimes you aren't seeing a superstar playing a small venue.
You're seeing someone in a small venue who is about to become a superstar.
Jack Johnson, Maroon 5 and the Black Eyed Peas
The pattern continued into the 2000s.
Jack Johnson performed there in 2001.
Maroon 5 played in September 2002.
The Black Eyed Peas performed in April 2003.
Mumford & Sons and Childish Gambino are among the other artists the venue cites as having played there while climbing the musical ladder.
It's one of the reasons old Belly Up concert calendars can feel like looking at a yearbook filled with people who later became famous.
New Owners, Same Weird Little Music Club
A major change occurred in July 2003.
Steve Goldberg and Phil Berkovitz acquired the Belly Up from Dave Hodges.
It would have been easy to modernize the place into something unrecognizable.
They didn't.
The Belly Up continued cultivating the character that had made it successful while expanding its reputation and booking reach.
Today, that quirky Quonset hut remains the heart of the venue.
Sometimes the Biggest Stars Want the Smallest Room
As Belly Up's reputation grew, an interesting reversal happened.
Originally, artists played the Belly Up because they were still building careers or because it was an excellent regional club.
Eventually, some enormous artists started playing there because it was small.
These performances are sometimes called "underplays."
An artist capable of selling thousands — or tens of thousands — of tickets deliberately books a tiny venue.
The Killers have done it.
Jimmy Buffett did it.
Willie Nelson.
Ben Harper.
Damian Marley.
Tom Jones.
And the Red Hot Chili Peppers returned.
But nothing quite compares with what happened in 2015.
The Night the Rolling Stones Played the Belly Up
On May 27, 2015, one of the biggest bands in rock-and-roll history walked onto the stage of a roughly 600-person club in Solana Beach.
The Rolling Stones.
It was a private show.
Mick Jagger.
Keith Richards.
Charlie Watts.
Ronnie Wood.
Playing inside the same Quonset hut where a bluegrass band had performed without a stage 39 years earlier.
And there was another wonderful behind-the-scenes detail.
The venue created an outdoor backstage running track for Mick Jagger so he could warm up before the performance.
Think about the absurdity of that scene.
One of the most famous frontmen in rock history jogging behind an old Quonset hut in Solana Beach before playing to a few hundred people.
That's Belly Up history.
And Mick Jagger Isn't Even the Strangest Backstage Story
Over five decades, the Belly Up accumulated some extraordinary stories.
When Screamin' Jay Hawkins performed, his stage act required him to emerge from a coffin.
The venue reportedly had to arrange for a coffin and six "pallbearers" to carry him onto the stage.
When mobility issues made it difficult for legendary singer Etta James to reach the stage, the club installed a hydraulic lift.
And when Stevie Nicks needed a hair dryer?
Belly Up staff found one.
These aren't stories you'd normally associate with an arena.
They're the kind of things that happen when legendary musicians play a club small enough that everybody backstage has to figure things out together.
Why Do Famous Musicians Keep Coming Back?
That's perhaps the most interesting question.
The Belly Up isn't glamorous.
It's not enormous.
It doesn't have arena-sized video screens.
And that's precisely the point.
The artist and audience are extraordinarily close.
The ceiling is low.
The crowd surrounds the stage.
The room feels alive.
Musicians can actually see the people they're performing for.
For audiences, it can feel less like watching a concert and more like being inside the concert.
That experience has become increasingly rare as live entertainment has moved toward massive arenas, festivals and stadiums.
The Belly Up offers almost the opposite.
The Building Is Part of the Story
The venue's physical appearance also tells an important piece of Solana Beach history.
Cedros Avenue wasn't always today's fashionable Cedros Design District.
The area was once much more industrial, filled with workshops, contractors and businesses occupying connected Quonset huts.
As Solana Beach evolved, Cedros Avenue transformed around them.
Furniture stores arrived.
Art galleries.
Design studios.
Restaurants.
Boutiques.
Yet the strange old curved-roof building survived.
Today, the Belly Up remains one of the cultural anchors of the Cedros Design District.
Fifty Years Later
On September 28, 2024, the Belly Up officially celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Solana Beach even declared September 28 "Belly Up Day."
The anniversary celebration brought together founder Dave Hodges, current owners Steve Goldberg and Phil Berkovitz, and singer Jason Mraz, among others.
The club marked the milestone with a series of special concerts.
Not bad for a bar whose very name joked about the likelihood that it would fail.
From Waterbeds to Rock & Roll History
That's ultimately what makes the Belly Up story so wonderfully San Diego.
It wasn't created by a giant entertainment corporation.
Nobody built a multimillion-dollar concert hall and predicted it would become legendary.
It happened almost accidentally.
Two friends found an empty waterbed business.
They opened a bar.
They put in ping-pong tables.
A bluegrass band showed up.
They moved the tables.
Someone built a stage out of leftover material.
More musicians came.
Then famous musicians came.
Then musicians came before they were famous.
And eventually musicians who could fill stadiums started coming because they wanted to experience that little room themselves.
More than 50 years later, the building is still there.
The shark is still hanging overhead.
The stage is considerably better.
And on the right night, you still never quite know who might walk onto it.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the Belly Up Tavern open?
The Belly Up opened on September 28, 1974, in Solana Beach, California. Founders Dave Hodges and Greg Gilholm converted space in a Quonset hut that had previously housed a waterbed manufacturing and showroom business.
Was the Belly Up always a music venue?
No. It originally operated primarily as a neighborhood bar with pool tables, ping-pong, games and beer and wine. Its first documented live performance took place in February 1976, before the club even had a permanent stage.
Who was the first band to play the Belly Up?
A bluegrass band called Squatters Last Rights played the first documented live show at the Belly Up on February 18, 1976.
Did the Rolling Stones really play there?
Yes. The Rolling Stones performed a private show at the Belly Up on May 27, 2015, one of the most famous performances in the venue's history.
What famous musicians have played the Belly Up?
The list includes B.B. King, Etta James, John Lee Hooker, Curtis Mayfield, George Clinton, The Neville Brothers, Willie Nelson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, No Doubt, Jack Johnson, Maroon 5, Black Eyed Peas, The Killers, Tom Jones and the Rolling Stones, among many others.
Where is the Belly Up?
The Belly Up is located at 143 S. Cedros Avenue in Solana Beach, in the Cedros Design District.
Some San Diego Landmarks Aren't Landmarks at All
When people think about historic San Diego places, they usually picture the Hotel del Coronado, Balboa Park or the missions.
But history doesn't always happen inside grand buildings.
Sometimes it happens inside an old waterbed warehouse with a papier-mâché shark hanging from the ceiling.
At Nancy's Vacation Rentals, we've spent more than 25 years helping visitors experience the neighborhoods, beaches and communities that make San Diego special.
Our San Diego Uncovered series explores the places, people and stories that reveal another side of America's Finest City.
And if you're exploring North County, don't just drive past that strange curved building on Cedros Avenue.
Some of the biggest names in music history have walked through those doors.
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From Waterbeds to the Rolling Stones: The History of the Belly Up Tavern
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Discover the incredible history of Solana Beach's Belly Up Tavern — from a former waterbed shop with no stage to an iconic San Diego music venue that has hosted the Rolling Stones, B.B. King, Willie Nelson, No Doubt and more.
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