Final Days for the Salty Frog?

After more than eight years, ownership of the longtime dive bar music venue is changing hands

Jason Hasty, Ben Lee and Kanai Williams took over the Salty Frog in 2011, but alas, after more than eight years, they're hopping on to new endeavors. 

The longtime Imperial Beach dive bar music venue has hosted countless local bands, including our SoundDiego LIVE beachside bash in April with the Blank Tapes, Coral Bells and Bad Kids. So, yeah, we're sad to see it go, but hopeful for its new direction.

According to Williams, who spoke candidly to SoundDiego about the sale, the new owners are a bit of a mystery, and he isn't really sure what their plans are with it.

"I just know that they [the new owners] plan on keeping it a bar, but I don't know what their concept is going to be," Williams said.

"I've met them, but I don't know who they are. I do know that they've been involved (or maybe still are) in other SD bars," he added.

While it's surely the end of an era for the Salty Frog, this isn't coming out of the blue. Hasty, Lee and Williams listed the bar for sale at the beginning of the year.

"The other partners are too far away to help with the management. Plus, they are juggling various other interests.... They want to pursue other interests with the money they had locked up in the bar," Williams said.

For now, we await the new future of the IB joint with our fingers crossed that it remains a music venue for a long time to come.

Rutger Ansley Rosenborg is an editor and digital marketer at NBC's SoundDiego. Find out more here.

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