‘America’s first karaoke bar’ Dimples to sing itself out

Sunshine Kriegsman came out to Dimples in Burbank Thursday night to bring her marriage “full circle.”

“I had my bachelorette party here and [I’m having] my divorce party here,” Kriegsman said, not long after she and some friends belted out a certain CeeLo Green earworm from the karaoke stage, dedicating it to her now ex-husband. “I wouldn’t do it any other place.”

But while she was celebrating the end of her marriage, she was also observing the end of something else she called heartbreaking. Dimples, the karaoke bar, which opened in 1982 and has been billed as “America’s first,” will be closing shortly after it hosts its final New Year’s Eve party.

PHOTOS: “America’s first karaoke bar” Dimples to close

“I wanted to create one last memory,” said Kriegsman, who lives in Sherman Oaks but said she’s been coming to Dimples for 18 years.

Dimples owner Sal Ferraro, 84, said he hasn’t set the date for the final curtain call, but he has to clear out in the next 60 days. The bar is in one of several buildings set to be demolished in order to make room for the Talaria at Burbank project, a 241-unit luxury apartment complex on top of a 43,000-square-foot Whole Foods.

Several patrons said that, unlike a Whole Foods, the bar in the low-slung building at 3413 W. Olive Ave. is an irreplaceable landmark.

With a large replica of the Hollywood sign and statues of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley out front, its windows are filled with stained-glass versions of studio logos — NBC, Warner Bros., Universal, Columbia.

Inside, the walls are lined with celebrity head shots, gold records and Hollywood kitsch. Antique cameras fill display cases and ancient film projectors clutter unused corners of the dining room — on one cabinet is an 8-track “singing machine” from the early days of karaoke in the United States.

On the well-lit stage, where things are now more high-tech, singers can choose from a variety of props — including a toy electric guitar, wigs in every color, cowboy hats, sombreros, Viking helmets and a stuffed monkey. They can watch themselves on the many television screens around the bar and, if it’s their first time, they can even get a DVD of their performance.

Frequently described as a “dive” — for good or bad — by reviewers on the site Yelp, Dimples isn’t for everyone. Some complained of tacky or off-color practices, such as placing a birthday sundae in the lap of a male patron and asking a female patron to kiss the whipped-cream-covered top.

When Jon Taffer came to the bar’s aid in his reality TV show “Bar Rescue” in 2013, he told Ferraro the “bizarre” ritual had to go. Taffer also moved all the memorabilia out of the bar and into storage.

Since then, the collection has returned and Ferraro said he’ll move it into a new location, “if I can find one,” or into storage until he can relocate.

Dick Kline, who was an executive at Polydor Records during the days of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” — a perennial favorite with karaoke singers — said he’s been a regular at Dimples for 25 years. Some of the gold records on the wall are his, he said. While he said no place will ever replicate Dimples exactly, if anyone can “recapture the magic” somewhere new, he thinks it’s Ferraro.

That magic, the regulars said, is why Dimples feels to them like a neighborhood bar where everybody knows your name. It’s a place where even celebrities can be regular people, said Dennis Haskins, who is perhaps best known as Mr. Belding, the principal of Bayside High in TV’s “Saved by the Bell.” He said he’s been coming to the bar for 14 years.

“It’s my Cheers,” Haskins said, referring to the fictional Boston bar from the 1980s sitcom. “I’m like Norm.”

Kim Snow, a longtime employee, said she’s telling the bar’s fans to come in while they can. Love it or hate it, she said, “there’s no place like it.”