The space at 5871 Hollister Avenue in Goleta had been occupied by Gus’s Cocktail Lounge since the building was constructed in 1957. It was, by all accounts, a real dive.
When the grimy watering hole hit the rental market in the mid-’90s, it was hardly Dawn O’Brien’s ideal location for a follow-up to her downtown bar, Elsie’s. Yet the turnkey solution ultimately proved too tempting to pass up.
“When are you ever going to get the chance to rent a bar?” O’Brien recalled. “The bar was there; the back bar was there; the soffit was there. Those are the difficult things.”