The Belly Up is a Quonset hut, the curved metal building the Navy used during World War II, and it has been a music club since 1974. It sits on South Cedros Avenue in Solana Beach, a block east of Highway 101, and it holds about 600 people. That size is the whole point. Acts that fill arenas have played it as a small show anyway, and the club keeps a long list of them.
Fifty years in one hut
Dave Hodges and two partners opened the place with a couple of microphones and no stage. Blues and rock carried the early years, and reggae and soul grew in the 1980s. John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Etta James, Curtis Mayfield and Toots and the Maytals are all on the club's own list of past acts. No Doubt, the Black Eyed Peas and Childish Gambino played here on the way up. The Red Hot Chili Peppers played to about 200 people in 1985, and the Rolling Stones played a private event here in May 2015.
Hodges sold the club in 2003 to Steve Goldberg and Phil Berkovitz. Their company, Belly Up Entertainment, also runs The Sound at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, and the club counts Music Box in Little Italy as a sister venue. The Belly Up turned 50 in 2024 and marked it with 50 shows over one summer.
How a night works
- Everyone is 21 or older. The club says it enforces this at every show with no exceptions. Bring a valid photo ID.
- Most shows are standing. A small number of floor seats go to whoever gets there first.
- The loft is the only reserved seating. Loft seats go on sale by phone and at the box office first, and they tend to go fast.
- Some nights are fully seated. The show listing says which kind of night you bought.
- Leaving means leaving. There is no re-entry, and stepping out front to smoke counts. Smokers get an area at the back of the club.
Cedros Avenue by car or by train
From the 5, take Lomas Santa Fe Drive west and turn left on Cedros. Solana Beach is about 20 miles north of downtown San Diego, close enough for a weeknight show and far enough that the ride home deserves a plan before the first round.
The Solana Beach train station is a short walk north on the same street, at Cedros and Lomas Santa Fe, with Coaster and Pacific Surfliner trains. Riding up from downtown is the easy half. Look up the evening schedule before you count on a train home after the encore.
You'll find the Belly Up's nights on our rock, reggae and blues and jazz calendars. The rest of the coast's rooms are on the North County page.