Crazy Horse Saddles Up, Hits the Trail

It’s one of Garth Brooks’ favorite Southern California hangouts. It’s where Buck Owens made a dramatic comeback after cancer surgery, and where Merle Haggard renounced his retirement. And it’s where Waylon Jennings almost left his heart.

It’s the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana, which evolved from a slightly kitschy Old West-themed red-meat emporium in a nondescript business park into one of the nation’s most prestigious and beloved country-music showcases.

The saloon doors that first opened 20 years ago will swing shut for the last time after Monday’s farewell concert with Buck Owens & the Buckaroos, the final entry on the long list of country greats who have played there. The Crazy Horse moves to larger digs in the Irvine Spectrum next month.

“I know it’s moving and it’s still going to be there, but it’s still sad for me,” Owens, 70, said from his Bakersfield office recently. “I’ve probably played there 25 or 30 times, and I cannot remember a crowd there that was not absolutely just wild with enthusiasm. And I cannot recall a band that didn’t have anything but nice things to say about it.”

Said Lance Roberts, vice president of the Nashville-based Bobby Roberts Agency, which represents numerous country performers: “Whenever any of our acts would tour the West Coast, the first call we’d ever make was the Crazy Horse in Santa Ana. . . . Everybody--I mean everybody--on my roster has played there a time or two.”

An increasingly competitive Orange County concert scene is what has prompted club co-owner Jay Nuccio, who bought the Crazy Horse two years ago from the original investors, to expand the club’s nationally recognized concert hall and its locally famous restaurant.

“Any time you move an icon, it’s a risk,” said Nuccio, who is partners with the club’s director of marketing and entertainment, Brad “Paco” Miller Jr. “But we felt that there also was a risk of staying here and not doing anything.”

The building that has been the home of the Crazy Horse for two decades’ worth of concerts was sold last month to Dyerhollow Partners, a consortium of investors, for a little under $2.5 million, Miller said. The group is now looking for a tenant to lease the building, so what it will become remains unknown.

The new site will seat about 600 concert-goers, about 30% of them in a balcony. Nuccio says the increased capacity will make it possible to bring in acts that the Crazy Horse cannot afford with its present 250 seats, making it one of the smallest major clubs in the U.S.

Not Just More Seats

The increased size, and a plan to broaden the musical offerings to include some rock, pop and blues shows, will put the Crazy Horse into more heated bidding over acts with the 475-seat Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and 550-seat Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana, long the county’s dominant concert clubs, as well as the new 1,200-seat gorilla on the block, the Sun Theatre in Anaheim.

They’re not simply expanding and relocating a successful concert club and eatery; Nuccio and Miller are making significant changes to a country-music institution.

Eight times during the ‘80s and ‘90s, the Crazy Horse was named nightclub of the year by the Academy of Country Music. That’s more than any other club except the now-defunct Palomino in North Hollywood, which dominated the Southern California country scene in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

The Palomino gave way to the Crazy Horse as the Southland’s top country spot not long after it opened in December 1979, on the heels of the ‘70s disco craze. The timing for a Western-themed restaurant, bar and nightclub was ideal as the movie “Urban Cowboy” hit in 1980, spurring millions to trade their polyester suits, platform shoes and Bee Gees records for dungarees, Tony Lama boots and the sounds of twangy guitars.

Original owner Fred Reiser and his three partners tiptoed into the concert business with a 1980 show by veteran country crooner Ray Price that quickly sold out. After more successes with Hoyt Axton and Merle Haggard, they began booking three or four shows a month, usually on Monday nights.

A Club With a Personal Touch

“Fred established the ‘Monday Night Football’ mentality for country music in Orange County,” said Paul Lohr, vice president of Buddy Lee Attractions, another large Nashville booking agency. “Monday was typically a night most people would steer clear of, but Fred made it work.”

Reiser always characterized concerts as “gravy,” while the meat-and-potatoes part of the operation was the restaurant. Big-name shows with Haggard, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, Tammy Wynette, Emmylou Harris, Roy Orbison, Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, Clint Black, Ricky Skaggs and others doubled as invaluable promotion for the steak house.

Reiser established the club as a favorite among country performers with the warmth and intimacy of a cozy room that was markedly smaller than what most acts were accustomed to.

“I hope they don’t lose what they had there,” Waylon Jennings said this week from his winter home in Phoenix, Ariz. “I liked playing there because of Fred Reiser, who is one of the best people I ever met, but another reason is the feeling there. You could really get in contact with the people. You could reach right out there from the stage and touch them.”

It was between shows during a 1988 stop at the Crazy Horse that Jennings suffered angina pains that put him in the hospital and culminated in triple-bypass heart surgery a few weeks later. Even though he had to cancel three more shows he’d been booked for, Jennings said Reiser insisted on paying him his full fee.

That exemplified the hospitality and integrity in business dealings that also became a hallmark of the Crazy Horse.

“Today when you go into most places, it’s all business,” said Lance Roberts, the booking agent for Jennings, Haggard, John Anderson, Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers, Lee Greenwood, Dan Seals, Bobby Bare and more. “The personal touch is missing so often--it’s all about numbers. It’s like being part of a great family whenever you’d go to the Crazy Horse.”

Most of those interviewed said that feeling of family has continued under Nuccio and Miller. (Hoyt Axton’s family chose the Crazy Horse for a recent jam session and farewell tribute to the late singer-songwriter.)

But in moving to the Irvine Spectrum, the Crazy Horse loses its high-visibility location off the Costa Mesa Freeway in a building that Nuccio and Miller owned outright, and where, according to Caltrans, an average of 234,000 cars a day whizzed by the marquee, near the Dyer Road exit of the Costa Mesa Freeway, that advertised upcoming shows.

“That sign is probably worth $10,000 of free advertising a month,” said Gary Folgner, owner of the Coach House and the Galaxy.

“We actually tried to work it out to keep the sign there advertising what’s coming up in Irvine. But it just wasn’t in the cards,” Nuccio said.

What the Crazy Horse gets in exchange is leased space next to Dave & Buster’s in a mall that drew 5 million visitors last year and is projected to attract 8 million this year, according to Spectrum officials.

“If their rent is what everybody else pays [at the Spectrum], this is going to be a giant gamble,” Folgner said. “But if they’ve got a sweetheart deal with the Irvine Co. and don’t have to pay as much as everyone else, they’ll have a good shot at making it work.”

Miller, who practically grew up in the Crazy Horse because his father was one of the original owners, said they’ll be paying monthly rent of about $4 per square foot at the new 16,000-square-foot location, which he called “a lot.”

“They definitely have the highest non-mall rents in Orange County,” said Ian Brown, senior vice president, retail division for Grubb & Ellis Commercial Real Estate Services. Brown said monthly rents of $1.50 to $2 per square foot are typical countywide, going up to $2 to $3 and even higher in some of the new “glamour areas” in South County.

But Nuccio and Miller say it’s worth it to be part of an environment where Crazy Horse patrons would also be able to dine, shop, see a movie or sample the Spectrum’s other entertainment options before or after attending a concert.

“The furthest seat here is 48 feet from the stage,” Miller said. “In the new place, it’ll be 56 feet.”

Added Nuccio: “My goal in doing this was to make it big enough to compete with the larger venues that are coming in and still stay intimate enough that we can provide the same kind of experience we have now.”

But even adding occasional classic-rock or blues shows to the musical menu, Miller said he doesn’t expect to butt heads with Folgner or the Sun Theatre over acts often.

The new Crazy Horse will have its grand opening Dec. 31 with country-rock band Diamond Rio and has other country shows booked with Sawyer Brown (Jan. 7-8), Bobby Bare (Jan. 18) and Toby Keith (Jan. 21). But the club reaches beyond country with concerts featuring Latin rock band War (Jan. 23) and pop-rock group America (Jan. 24), both of which have played Folgner’s clubs in the past.

“If they stay with country music, they won’t give us any competition,” Folgner said. “I won’t do country because I’ve never been able to make it work. But if they go outside the realm of country, you bet I’m going to compete with them.”

Sun Theatre concert director Ken Phebus said that he’ll compete, too, and that his 1,200-seat venue has some advantages over the new 600-seat Crazy Horse. “If there’s a jump ball for a band and the choice is playing one show for me or two shows for them, I think most of them will go with me,” Phebus said.

He added that another concert club in the marketplace “will certainly help raise the public’s awareness of concerts in Orange County.”

Privately, however, some concert scene observers say they are skeptical that the Crazy Horse can thrive given significantly higher overhead in a competitive market with another venue on the horizon; another House of Blues is expected to open in 2001 at Disneyland’s Pointe Anaheim expansion.

Said Nuccio: “The emergence of the Sun Theatre--as one of many competitors coming into the market--is evidence of why we felt it was as big a risk to stay here as it would be to make the move.”

Even with higher rent and lower drive-by visibility, “the Crazy Horse moving to the Spectrum is the best thing that could have happened for both parties,” said Grubb & Ellis’ Brown.

“The Crazy Horse is more than a regional retailer--it will bring people in from 30 and 40 miles away, and all of a sudden you’ve got all of the country and western audience,” Brown said. “If I were the Irvine Co., I’d be very proud of that coup.”

Randy Lewis may be reached by e-mail at Randy.Lewis@latimes.com.

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New Stomping Grounds

It’s a legend in the moving as the Crazy Horse Steak House leaves its home of 20 years in Santa Ana, where it became a nationally renowned country-music hot spot, and heads to the Irvine Spectrum.

Fans will say goodbye to the old location Monday night during farewell shows by Buck Owens & the Buckaroos.

The owners plan to increase the number of shows they book as well as expand beyond country to include an occasional rock, blues or R&B; act.

Old Crazy Horse

Showroom: 52’x64’

Stage: 16’x24’

Dance Floor: 15’x30’

Bars: 1

Capacity: 275

New Crazy Horse

Showroom: 54’x96’

Stage:20’x38’

Dance Floor: 20’x40’

Bars: 2

Capacity: 600 (428 on main level; 180 upstairs balcony)

The seating plan may be revised before the new facility opens next month.

Source: Crazy Horse Steak House