Crazy Horse Moving to Spectrum

The Crazy Horse Steak House, one of the most admired country music venues in the nation, will relocate from its longtime spot in Santa Ana to the Irvine Spectrum Center, where the club will more than double its concert seating in hopes of landing more big acts than its current capacity of 250 will allow.

The Irvine Improv comedy club, another fixture on the Orange County entertainment scene, also is moving to the strategically located Spectrum, an outdoor mall at the confluence of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways.

The high-profile tenants would add a new dimension to the Spectrum, which now has no live entertainment venues for big-name performers.

The Irvine Co., which owns the Spectrum, also announced Friday it will add nine more screens to its Edwards 21 megaplex and that GameWorks will move in later this year, replacing--and expanding--the current Sega City game room.

The moves by the Crazy Horse and the Irvine Improv put pressure on the Block at Orange shopping and entertainment center, which opened with a flourish last November, but lacks concert venues. Earlier plans to include a large Graham Central Station nightclub there never materialized.

The Block still plans to add live entertainment, but general manager James Mance on Friday declined to give specifics since the deal has not been finalized. “There’s a lot of things shaking over here too, but we’re just not at that point to release anything,” he said.

The Improv, now in a shopping center across from UC Irvine, is expected to move in November. The Crazy Horse, marked by its distinctive neon sign and marquee along the Costa Mesa Freeway, aims to open Dec. 1 with 550 to 600 seats.

The Crazy Horse’s owners are trying to sell the existing building and are asking about $2 million, one of its co-owners confirmed Friday.

Brad “Paco” Miller Jr., general manager and minority partner in the Crazy Horse, said that he and Jay Nuccio, the majority owner and talent-booker, plan no drastic changes from their current format. Their steak-and-seafood restaurant doubles as a saloon for country dancing, and, about two nights a week, as an intimate concert hall for old-line country music legends or hot newcomers on the sales charts.

The Crazy Horse will seek to increase concert offerings from about 90 nights a year to 120, said Miller. That means forays into classic rock, blues and jazz bookings, although country headliners will continue to dominate and set the club’s tone.

But any move the Crazy Horse makes beyond its country music borders could set off a turf war with Orange County’s two other major concert clubs, the Galaxy in Santa Ana and the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

“It was live and let live,” as long as the Crazy Horse stuck to country, said Ken Phebus, concert director for Coach House/Galaxy owner Gary Folgner. “Now they’re going to be booking all kinds of stuff, and we’re not going to sit still with that.”

Fans at the Crazy Horse have long been willing to pay premium prices--often more than $45 or $50--for top attractions such as Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. The Crazy Horse opened in 1979, began booking high-profile talent the following year, and gradually became the only Southern California club presenting a steady diet of name country talent. The country music industry has honored the club with numerous awards, including eight trophies from the Academy of Country Music as nightclub of the year.

“The Crazy Horse has always been the staple of country music on the West Coast, period,” said Cynthia Whittington, a Nashville-based booking agent.

Whittington said a 600-seat Crazy Horse should be able to bid as high as $30,000 a show for talent, and would be able to reel in performers who wouldn’t play two shows a night--an economic necessity at the Santa Ana club. Miller mentioned Dwight Yoakam and Randy Travis as possibilities who previously were out of reach.

Folgner, whose venues dominate club-level concerts in Orange County, said the Crazy Horse’s relocation looks like “a terrible move” because the club owners are giving up their own building for what he called the “staggering” rent at Irvine Spectrum, as well as the free advertising of that prominent freeway sign.

Miller said the decision to move wasn’t easy, but Crazy Horse management was prodded by two main concerns: the need to jump into the bidding for bigger-name country artists that sometimes bypass the Crazy Horse and the concern that if the Crazy Horse didn’t move into a larger space, a competitor would.

The Spectrum rent “is very expensive,” Miller agreed, but less than the $4 a square foot Folgner speculated the Crazy Horse would pay. (That compares to $1 at the Coach House and 70 cents at the Galaxy.) “It is a gamble, but everything is. Moving down there gives us an opportunity to expand on what we’re good at.”

Times staff writer Dennis McLellan contributed to this report.

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Crazy Horse Bolts

The Crazy Horse Steak House, one of the few country music venues in Southern California, plans to move from Santa Ana to Irvine Spectrum by Dec. 1.