San Diego Bar’s Flora-Bama Wall Proves A Big Hit

San Diego Bar’s Flora-Bama Wall Proves A Big Hit
When Ty Hauter has bands flown in from Nashville and Texas to his Moonshine Beach music venue in San Diego, the up-and-coming artists flock to the club’s Flora-Bama wall to take pictures. “So, when bands come into town they always get their picture taken by it just like the owner did,” Hauter said. “It’s become this special wall that everybody gravitates to for selfies and what not before they take off out of town.
Hauter has visited the world-famous Flora-Bama once he came away enamored with the place. “I adore it,” he said. “I think it’s a great place. I grew up in smaller towns in the Midwest and places like that, that’s what we dreamed about as kids.”
When he was putting together ideas for Moonshine Beach, a 1,500-seat venue and bar that does ticketed shows as well as host cover bands, his thoughts went back to the special place he visited on the Florida-Alabama line.
“Southern California doesn’t really have a country music scene,” Hauter said. “It just started evolving a few years ago and now it’s expanding. I was trying to bring in more flavor from the Gulf Coast and the South. I’ve been living in Nashville for a couple of years now and I was trying to think of items that would resonate and somehow set a tone. In my mind, (the Flora-Bama is) one of the motherships of vibe and what it’s all about. That’s how it ended up on that wall.”
Long-time Flora-Bama owner Joe Gilchrist stopped by to see the wall on a trip to San Diego and wants to bring a group from the Bama out for a visit. “I think we ought to do a home-and-home party,” Gilchrist said. “Get a bunch of people to go out there and a bunch of people from out there to come here. I’m all for it.”