Guest Post: The Old Guy - ...and there was Beavers

I found this photo on The Nashville I Wish I Knew Facebook page. I think it's kind of hilarious that a bar named Beavers existed at all and of course it existed in WeHo on Rains Ave. So I asked the Old Guy about it. Here's his response:

At the SNAP meeting a couple of weeks ago our hostess Jen was telling me about a website she had found with old pictures and asked me about one she had found. I told her what I knew about it and she suggested that I write it out as an Old Guy post and so here it is.

As I stated previously in the mid sixties two houses were torn down on the corner of Rains Ave. and Zimmerlee St. and a new restaurant was built, Bobby’s B.B.Q.. It was built in response to a trend for “curb service” barbecue. The building was a flat rectangular structure surrounded by a covered walk and a parking lot. There were low bar stool type chairs, one at each corner of the restaurant on which sat a waiter who would leap out to your car and take your order without you ever budging from your seat. In my recollection these were rarely used, fell into disrepair and were removed. By about the late sixties the barbecue craze had subsided and the restaurant closed.

The building sat vacant for a short while until it was reopened as a nightclub named “Beavers”. The club used to advertise on the local rock radio station KDF 103.3 (which has since gone country) and tried to set its self up as a music venue, ala 12^th and Porter, etc. I remember sneaking out of the house to go and stand at the sealed off door, behind which was the stage, to hear the bands without paying the cover. But alas “Beavers” was not meant to be. The location is rather away from the other music hangouts so after the initial excitement the crowds dwindled. And a group of the neighbor "hoods" decided to claim it for their own and would hassle the staff and the few remaining customers and the owners could no longer make a go of it.

One night the building literally exploded some might say under suspicious circumstances. Perhaps the insurance got too close to the mortgage, I really don’t know. The remnants were scraped away and the lot lay vacant for a few years until the building was built that now holds ABC mobile brake.

And there you have it. Happy Friday, folks!