Neighborhood Lounge Is Basking in Limelight of Theatre’s Success

Some purveyors of night life on the Central Coast may resent the Ventura Theatre’s success, but not Ellis Otwell, the 56-year-old owner of the San Souci Cocktail Lounge.

The dark, tiny, working-class bar with a capacity of 30 people, across Chestnut Street from the theater, has become something of a hangout for concert-goers, especially among the fishnet-stockings-and-leather-jacket set.

The theater’s reopening nearly two years ago “really upped our business,” Otwell said. He estimated that sales have increased by 30%.

“They come in before a concert, after a concert and go back and forth for a break,” said Marjory Wardien, the bar’s manager. She owns another Ventura lounge, the Town and Country.

The influx has changed the complexion of the lounge. Regulars, who have come to the bar for years and tend toward cowboy hats and stretch pants, have made room for fans of rock bands such as Fishbone and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Otwell, a former supplier of tools to the oil industry, believes his success is due to his prices, which run $2 for a mixed drink--albeit, one of the well variety.

Gregory Ignacio, a 35-year-old Oxnard engineer who dropped into the bar before John Prine’s recent concert, said location is the key.

“It just seems like a logical place to catch a buzz before going over to the show,” said Ignacio, in a big-shouldered, black overcoat and spiky haircut.

Other concert-goers spoke lovingly of the bar’s decor, which Otwell describes as “Old English” and swears hasn’t changed in the 30 years since the San Souci--that’s French for “without a care”--opened.

Dominated by a large U-shaped Formica bar equipped with a bell for those occasions when a regular buys the house a round, it’s sort of a sea of red, with red Naugahyde booths illuminated by red light bulbs.

A clock with a picture of John Wayne decoupaged to its face hangs on the wall. A jukebox and dart board share the other room with a couple of photographs of Elvis Presley.

Despite a big black box hanging from the ceiling that sucks cigarette smoke, the bar smells of soggy bar towels and heaping ashtrays. The only natural light that leaks into the windowless, two-room establishment comes from the front door.

“It’s great,” says one local reviewer. “It’s like this out-of-the-way cowboy dive.”

But where some see a set for a Guess Jeans advertisement, others have found a home.

Ron Reynolds, a retired sewing machine salesman, said he’s been coming into the bar on a daily basis since Otwell bought it 14 years ago. Before that, he frequented the Pump Room, the Main Street bar that Otwell sold to buy the San Souci.

“Sometimes I just come in for a cup of coffee, but I’m always here,” he said. “This is a comfortable place. I know just about everybody here.”

And presiding over it all is Otwell, who keeps the bar open 365 days a year and closes for a scant four hours daily, between 2 and 6 a.m. He serves Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner there, and once a month dons an apron for a free barbecue in a small courtyard in front of the lounge.

These are the touches of an old bar hand. Over the years, Otwell has owned a restaurant and three bars, including Ventura Avenue’s Derek Room, which he sold six months ago. The former oil man didn’t hit pay dirt, however, until the Ventura Theater reopened across from the San Souci.

“Every day,” he said, “people ask to buy it.”