After working at Zelo on State Street and as an art restorationist, O’Brien broke out on her own in the early 1990s by opening Elsie’s and The Mercury Lounge, both under-the-radar, craft-beer-before-it-was-even-a-thing bars that thrive to this day. In 2013, she took over the shell of the Bak Dor — a dive bar in every sense of the phrase — behind the old Sizzler on Hollister Avenue in Old Town Goleta, and she built a retro cocktail palace.
Here’s how she does it:
What’s first? I take out what I don’t want. That left me a pretty hollow shell!