A Tale of Three (or Four) Restaurants

Wow, what a night! My head still hurts. Which is why this post is a bit delayed...we ended up having a bit too much fun out in Hillcrest last night...heh! :-)

But I'm getting ahead of myself...lets begin at the beginning. We started the day yesterday looking for a good place in Hillcrest to grab a bite to eat, and saw this hamburger joint which looked intriguing:


As you can see from the photo, there were actually a few diners sitting there, both indoors and outdoors. Not a bad crowd, it would appear, considering the size of the place. So, while still undecided as to whether we wanted to eat any of the their "famous" burgers (the sign says that, so they must be, right?), we went in for a closer look.

There is nothing particularly remarkable about the interior of Lucky Buck's, it's basically kitchy little surfer bric-a-brac along the shelves, an elaborate cartoon mural of a fantasy gay beach on one wall, and another stainless steel wall full of customer scrawlings in black ink. "'So-and-so' had their birthday here on 'such-and-such a date'" and the like. The funny thing is, if you examine these scrawlings closely, you begin to notice obvious similarities in handwriting between supposedly different past customers.

Another odd thing we notice is, all the customers have these little stickers on. We look more closely, and then it dawns on me that today (ie, yesterday) was national Dining Out For Life Day. Being on vacation, I had actually completely forgotten about this; in fact, in past years I have made a point to go out to eat and support this event. And, credit where credit is due, Lucky Buck's had indeed signed on as a sponsor.

So, I ask one of the Lucky Buck's Dining Outers there whether the place was usually this crowded..."actually no, it's usually pretty dead here...we came here because we were in a hurry and the wait to get into Betty's is just crazy long due to Dining Out Day."

"I see..." I said. "Well, how's the famous burger here?"

She hesitated a bit. "It's OK I guess," she shrugged.

Well, based on that ringing endorsement, we thought we might like to try someplace else instead. Maybe Lee Bergeron's other local business venture? Yes, Hula's San Diego, "Hillcrest’s newest fun place to have lunch or dinner, or just hang out with friends!" The flagship, showcase establishment of the Lee Bergeron restaurant empire! It was just down the street, so yeah, lets go there instead, we thought. If we were going to dine at a Bergeron restaurant, particularly on Dining Out Day, we might as well sample the very best Merlin Lee Bergeron has to offer!

So anyways, we stroll westwards (on a frankly beautiful sunny afternoon) down University Avenue in Hillcrest, past Baja Betty's, which is indeed a mob scene today (ie, yesterday) to the appropriate address for Hula's...and low and behold:


"WTF!" we said. Is it closed on Dining Out Day? And where's the sign? There's no sign...nothing.

So, we cross the street for a closer look, and inside...well, judge for yourself. It looks like the place is in the process of being stripped bare:


Remodelling maybe? They've open been open less than a year, so that seems unlikely. Well, by this time we are starting to get peckish, and need to eat somewhere, so we decide to go this obviously popular place across the street, Urban Mo's. A queer name for a place, but there you have it.

And queer it was indeed! This was the happening gay place to be yesterday afternoon, I'm happy to say. We had to wait a bit for a table due to the crowds, but it was worth it. The food, I'd say, was pretty good, and the prices reasonable considering the vast portion sizes that they served.

The best part was the ambiance, though. Lots of San Diego boys, very friendly, all chatting and drinking. We spotted porn star Phillip Aubrey in the crowd. And I suspect there were more San Diego based porn stars there too that we did not immediately recognize. No Brent, however. Or Brent. :-)

The drink portions were as generous as the meal portions. We saw one that we had to get, called a "Fishbowl." It's basically an Adios Motherfucker served literally in a small fishbowl...complete with a big orange straw and two plastic fishes bobbing around in the azure aquarium. It's $17, but it should be the only drink you have for the entire night. Woe to thee who drinks two (or more).

So anyways, we are halfway through our first Fishbowls, when we decide to do a little sleuthing into this Hula's mystery. So, emboldened by alcohol, we ask one of the friendly Urban Mo's staffpeople what the deal was across the street.

"HULA'S! Oh girl, don't even get me started...!"

But, like it or not, we had. I will not attempt to reproduce stenographically the subsequent flow of impassioned words verbatim, but I shall relate the gist of the "conversation" into bullet points:

1) Hula's closed abruptly, without warning, last month;

2) Hula's staff (many of whom were close friends with this Urban Mo's staff person) was told the reason for the closure was a planned sale of the business to the owners of Fiesta Cantina, a popular gay bar and restaurant in West Hollywood, and that they might get new jobs with the new owner;

3) The sale went into escrow but did NOT take place, due to the fact Lee Bergeron neglected to tell the Fiesta Cantina group that the Hula's liquor license was non-transferable. (Hmmm, yeah, kinda important for a bar/restaurant to have a liquor license there, I'd say!) Claims of fraud were made, and the Fiesta Cantina people are trying to rescind the deal and retrieve their money from escrow.

4) Meanwhile, many vendors all over San Diego who dealt with Lee Bergeron and Hula's have unpaid bills; bill collectors seeking Lee's at the restaurant were a common occurrence in the final days, according to staff;

5) On top of that...and here our narrator gets VERY emotional...the Hula's staff were stiffed. Specifically, their penultimate paycheck bounced, and their final paycheck never delivered.

6) The Hula's staff continues to get the runaround from Lee, who tells them a new story practically every day, while flitting back and forth between residences in San Diego and Palm Springs.

Unfortunately, these neat and precise bullet points don't truly convey the spirit of this deposition; add actual adjectives like "scumbag," "dirtball," and "lowlife" and, you'll begin to comprehend the tenor in which these revelations were made.

Well. That sobered us up a bit! Oh and needless to say, we left a big tip. :-)

The rest of the evening is more or less a drunken blur which involved me sleeping in a location other than the one I had originally planned to. As I am certain you all are not interested in this, I shall skip on to this morning, after I had returned to the location containing my laptop...

Well, when I got back, I looked to see if I could verify what I had been told concerning the Hula's situation. And sure enough, a casual check at the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control website turns up this:


As you can see, our Urban Mo's source was essentially correct. Hula's liquor license has a "NO SALE 2 YEARS" condition dating from it's issue date of "10-JUN-2008." Lee was basically trying to sell a business that could not legally serve alcohol until June of 2010. No wonder Fiesta Cantina was furious. Here's the pending license on file for the Hillcrest Fiesta Cantina:


...and as you can see, there is a Hold on the deal, "AUTHORITY TO CLOSE ESCROW," said authority unlikely to be given anytime soon due to the two year no sale condition in the current active license.

There was one more thing I thought I'd check on while logged onto the CA ABC site. If Lee was trying to sell Hula's, might he also be trying to sell Lucky Buck's as well?

And the answer seems to be no. There is no pending transfer of Lucky Buck's liquor license in the works; indeed, it looks like such a transfer is also currently impossible. Not due to any two year restriction (the license issue date is November of 2006, so, no problem there), but due to a "BOARD OF EQUALIZATION HOLD" on the license. Apparently, Lee Bergeron is in arrears on remitting his California state sales taxes for Lucky Bucks, going back as far as February of 2008:

Well well well, I must say this certainly has been an interesting San Diego vacation, with yesterday and this morning more interesting than expected. Boy I tell ya, investigative vacations like this sure are fun! :-)

Look for more updates possibly later this weekend, at more or less irregular intervals. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky again tonight! :-)