After failed negotiations with their expiring lease, the operators of Mother’s Saloon in Ocean Beach, Colin and Shelby Wickersheim, have bid adieu to the restaurant-bar industry.
“We’ve closed after 10 years,” said Colin of the crossroads establishment at 2228 Bacon St. “We couldn’t secure a (new) lease. I just couldn’t see paying more money than I am now in a new lease when right now we’re only operating at 30% capacity. It just didn’t pan out.”
Wickersheim and his wife both have other businesses. He owns a graphics lab in the Midway warehouse district, GraphicLab Promotional Products, with a contract to sell military apparel at 3450 Kurtz St., Suite B. She is a local salon hairstylist.
“It’s a bummer for the employees,” said Wickersheim of closing. “But most of them are in their 20s working more than one job as part-time waitresses and at the bar.”
He added he was able to help place at least a couple of his 22 employees in other local restaurants-bars.
In the 1960s, what became Mother’s hosted burlesque clubs such as the Red Garter and the G Lounge. The building later re-opened as a live music venue and nightclub called Dream Street, which operated for nearly 20 years. Several well-known bands played there including Korn, Slightly Stoopid, the Deftones, the Melvins, and Candlebox. Dream Street closed in 2011.
Shelby Wickersheim, owner of Canvas Hair Studio on Garnet Avenue in PB, then took over the business in 2011, along with its unrestricted liquor license (allowing dancing, live music, and serving until 2 a.m.). She renamed the club Mother’s.
Music entertainment promoter Gale Hopping remembers Mother’s well as a successful local live music venue.
“We took Mother’s to another level in the local music scene with some of the now locally famous bands that played there,” said Hopping, who promoted music locally through his Gale Force Productions. “I had a plan, and we made that plan work for over five years.”
Hopping noted Voltaire Street has traditionally been the dividing line between music venues on Newport Avenue and those elsewhere in OB and the Peninsula.
“People on Newport didn’t want to go past Voltaire and vice versa,” Hopping said. “We gave them a reason to come down to Voltaire.”
Hopping said the first music show he promoted at Mother’s was New Year’s Eve 2012, and the last one was about a year ago at the annual 4/20 community jam, which he described as “a celebration of culture in OB.”
Hopping, along with lots of others, will miss Mother’s, though he’s still a part-time resident of OB which he characterized as “the last old school iconic beach town in the world.”
“Music promotions at Mother’s Saloon was the highlight of my adult life, working with all the local bands big and small such as Falling Doves, The Freightshakers, Rascal Martinez, Lacy Younger and No Kings, as well as doing the official Slightly Stooped party buses each year, and hosting artists like former Tom Petty bassist Ron Blair and Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Greg Douglass, formerly of the Steve Miller Band,” Hopping said.
Wickersheim wishes whoever follows him at Mother’s well. But he cautioned there may be some difficult times ahead, noting bar-restaurant owners operate on extremely thin profit margins.
“If you don’t own the property outright, and you don’t have a mortgage, your bar-restaurant business is operating at 6 to 8 percent off the top,” he said. “That means, for every $100 you earn, you’re only making $6 to $8 in profit after you pay your overhead.”
“It’s a fun business,” concluded Wickersheim. “We enjoyed it. We still live in OB. We didn’t want to give it up. But I’m a businessman and you have to make money.”
Added Wickersheim: “We had a tough year last year. And Covid-19 put us over the top. I just think next year is going to be a very tough experience in the restaurant-bar business. I think landlords are going to have to work with restaurant-bar owners/operators if they are to survive.”