Pacific Beach San Diego bars and Club

Less than two years after debuting his country-rock dance venue in downtown San Diego, owner Ty Hauter is exporting his still-young brand to Pacific Beach.

Construction is under way on the $4 million project, expected to make its debut by February.

The 18, 000-square-foot space, a hybrid restaurant and entertainment venue, will feature what Hauter boasts will be one of the city’s largest dance floors. His project marks a return to the beach area, where at one time he owned and operated restaurants and bars.

“Looking around, I just saw that coastal San Diego was devoid of live music and quality entertainment geared toward younger formats and new country, ” said Hauter. “The closest ones to us would be the Belly Up and House of Blues. What we’re putting together is not just the show, but we’ll have enough to offer where you’ll stay in our venue for four to six hours.”

Just as his downtown Moonshine space is a two-in-one-concept, so too will be the Pacific Beach project, which will feature a restaurant with a south-of-the-border menu that Hauter is calling Cerveza Jack’s. A smaller pop-up version of the eatery may be open as early as December, but the full buildout of the restaurant won’t be completed until April, he estimated.

The re-imagined Typhoon space will be transformed into a live music venue that will have a 4, 000-square-foot dance floor and five bars fashioned from large shipping containers. Where Moonshine Flats has a Texas roadhouse motif, Moonshine Beach will have more of Gulf Coast hospitality feel. The restaurant and entertainment venue will share a 2, 500-square-foot patio.

Moonshine will accommodate up to 1, 500 people, making it more than twice as large as the Belly Up and the Music Box (formerly Anthology). And its capacity will allow for several hundred more people than the House of Blues and Observatory North Park.. Hauter’s plan is to feature on the weekends higher-profile new country acts touring both regionally and nationally, while on weeknights, he hopes to add to the mix reggae and indie rock groups.

Even as he works on completing the Pacific Beach project, Hauter’s company, Good Time Design, is scouting other locations outside California to replicate the Moonshine concept.

“Right now, I’m negotiating a space in Nashville and I’ve started negotiating a location in Las Vegas, ” he said. “I just want to focus on something I’m really passionate about.”

Toward that end, he’s been divesting himself of a number of his other hospitality investments in such places as the Tipsy Crow, Bootlegger, Double Deuce and Knotty Barrel in downtown San Diego, and the First Street Bar in Encinitas.

Last year, he closed his Southpaw Social Club, a downtown restaurant and bar that wasn’t bringing in enough revenue to continue operating. He also had to give up on another downtown venture, a plan to reinvent the former Palm San Diego steakhouse, because the partnership behind the deal dissolved.

“What I’m trying to do is get down to a couple core brands and take Moonshine national, ” Hauter said. “I wanted to simplify my life.”