Since we opened Torrance’s Southland Bar back in October, many people have asked “where did you get that moose?”  If we were given a dollar for every time somebody asked us about “Bruce”, we would all be rich!  So let me tell you the story of how we obtained Bruce The Moose.

Somewhere along the line of thinking of design pieces for Southland Bar, we decided on getting a moosehead.  I looked online and saw that typical mooseheads ran in the $2,000 range.  Wow.  I had no idea that mooseheads cost so much money!

Obviously that was out of our price range so what did I do?  Yep, I turned to my trusty Craigslist.  The online swapmeet for everybody!  After about a month of searching, I finally came upon a moosehead that fit our budget and it was located in Long Beach.  It was already evening time but I was afraid that the thing would get sold quick so Scottie, Andy, and I trekked down there to check it out.

I realized upon exiting the freeway, that the place was located close to my Grandma’s old house.  Definitely NOT a good neighborhood.  Anyway, we arrive at the place and it was an empty store.  The guy met us out front and let us inside.  What a crazy place it was.  All kinds of antique junk and animal heads.  The guys from American Pickers would have had a field day!

We finally saw Bruce and he looked TERRIBLE!  His eye was missing!  The guy informed us that a rat had gained entrance into the shop and gnawed off Bruce’s eye.  Well, we immediately fell in love with him and after negotiating a more than fair deal, we brought Bruce out to Andy’s SUV to take him home.

We realized that we had a big problem after around 15 minutes.  Bruce didn’t fit in Andy’s SUV!

Unfortunately, his horns wouldn’t allow the doors to close.  By this time, the guy had already left so we couldn’t leave Bruce with him and pick him up at a later time.

So here we were.  3 Asian guys in a seedy area of Long Beach and it’s 10 at night.  Definitely not a good scenario.  We didn”t know anybody in the LA area who had a pickup truck that we could use and I didn’t have the number of the guy we just bought Bruce from, so we were basically screwed at this point.  Finally, I call a taxidermist who we need to fix Bruce’s eye.  I beg and plead for him to come pick up Bruce immediately.  Although he was located in West LA, he agreed to come out.  SWEET!  So we are all happy at this moment.  He calls back 10 minutes later and says he can’t come because his girlfriend won’t let him.  Apparently his story of going to pickup a moose at 10pm sounds fishy to her and she thinks he is going out on a date with another woman.  I am pretty desperate at this point so I offer to talk to her myself to reassure her that her boyfriend is really telling the truth!  After a couple more minutes of pleading, she finally lets him come out.

And Bruce fit in his truck.  Yay!  His eye was fixed up and delivered back to us in a couple of days.  The taxidermist said that Bruce was shot around 100 years ago.  Wow!

If only he could talk and tell us where he’s been in these 100 years.  I bet it would be a great story.  Anyhow, we are happy to have Bruce as part of the Southland Family!  Make sure to say “Hello” to him next time you’re at the bar!

-JSaka

Hello and greetings from the South Bay.  I would like to take this moment to introduce myself.  I am one of the co-owners of your neighborhood watering hole, Southland Bar.  I grew up in the South Bay area and like everyone else who grew up in the South Bay couldn’t wait to leave the South Bay.  Now that I’m a little bit wiser (I would like to think this is true) and a little bit older (I know this is true when I wake up in the morning), I finally realized that the South Bay i.e. Palos Verdes, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Gardena, Hermosa Beach, Lomita, and all the places that comprise the South Bay truly are special and unique.  It might have taken me to have to move across the country to the Midwest in Ohio and back down to San Diego, CA for college to realize all this, but now that I have finally returned home and established some roots again in this area, I wanted to get the word out about this hidden gem in Los Angeles.  This blog will be about South Bay happenings or places to eat in the area.  If you have any recommendations, I would love to hear from you.

We just had our grand opening event, and have been busy uploading new photos and content to show you our exciting new bar.

We will keep you posted and feel free to signup to our email list to receive exclusive invites!