Goat Hill Tavern founder ‘Zeb’ Ziemer, 84, dies; remembered for his tenacious spirit and pioneering bar

Robert “Zeb” Ziemer, founder of Goat Hill Tavern, a downtown Costa Mesa institution renowned for its record-setting selection of draft beers, died Friday.

The Eastside Costa Mesa resident died of complications related to cancer. He was 84.

Ziemer and “the Goat,” as his bar is affectionately called, have had a storied but occasionally uneasy relationship with the city.

The storied came after the popular establishment went from pouring standard domestics such as Budweiser and Coors to serving harder-to-find varieties from craft breweries and got the Guinness world record for largest selection of draft beers, a title it held for several years. It now boasts 141 taps.

Ziemer’s pioneering move was “brilliant,” said Costa Mesa Councilman Gary Monahan, a former Goat Hill manager.

“He was the first one to do it,” Monahan said. “It turned the Goat Hill from a neighborhood bar into a phenomenon.”

In the early 1990s, however, the City Council moved to revoke Ziemer’s permit, contending the bar was getting too rowdy. The case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ziemer won.

“The City Council had the wrong idea, and we had to correct them,” Ziemer told the Daily Pilot in 2013.

Ziemer, a self-made man, was never one to give up, said Charles Nicholson, one of his adopted sons who now helps run the business.

“He wouldn’t back down,” Nicholson said. “He did things on principle.”

Ziemer’s tenacious spirit was exemplified in 2011, when an expensive Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit — which was eventually dropped — partially spurred the closure of The Helm, a bar adjacent to Goat Hill that became The Boulevard. Ziemer owned the property.

“All I know is that I’m [not] going to have some bum come along every day and sue me for something I didn’t do … so I’m fighting back,” Ziemer told the Pilot in 2011.

Nicholson said his father was very generous in the community, though often in a quiet way.

“He had the biggest heart,” Nicholson said.

Ziemer was born in 1932 in Pendleton, Ore., and raised in Mankato, Minn. He served in the Navy during the Korean War.

Ziemer founded Goat Hill’s predecessor, Zeb’s World Famous Boathouse, in 1968 in Santa Ana. But, like what would later happen in Costa Mesa, his business eventually was challenged by city authorities who wanted to shut it down.

So in 1984, Ziemer uprooted the bar and transplanted it to neighboring Costa Mesa. The new name, Goat Hill, was taken from an early moniker for Costa Mesa because of its scrappy agricultural roots.

Aside from running his business, Ziemer enjoyed collecting classic cars and playing shuffleboard.

Ziemer is survived by Nicholson, adopted son Kevin Sand, brother Karl Ziemer, sister-in-law Jill and one grandchild. He never married.

Ziemer’s family said his funeral service will be private, but a public celebration of life is being planned at Goat Hill. Details have not been finalized.