Lacey J’s Roadhouse Saloon and Grille had been a country and western club that was known by several previous names and different owners, including W.C.’s Wagon Wheel Bar and Grill and Mulvaney’s, but come Easter Sunday, Pastor Todd Tolson of Riverview Community Church hopes to be conducting worship services instead of leading a two-step across its floor.
Lacey J’s Roadhouse Saloon and Grille had been a country and western club that was known by several previous names and different owners, including W.C.’s Wagon Wheel Bar and Grill and Mulvaney’s, but come Easter Sunday, Pastor Todd Tolson of Riverview Community Church hopes to be conducting worship services instead of leading a two-step across its floor.
That’s right, the saloon will undergo its newest incarnation to be born-again as a church. Riverview Community Church has leased the building, on the corner of Woodside and Magnolia avenues in Santee, with its 70-year history of serving as an iconic entertainment venue, and plans on turning it into an entirely different operation.
The local faith-based community is undergoing a major growth spurt that will usher in such impactful venues as the upcoming San Diego Christian College in Santee and the mega-church known as The Rock in El Cajon.
Santee Mayor Randy Voepel had been initially opposed to the San Diego Christian College coming to his town, voicing that he would not approve taking a large amount of property off the tax rolls. His vision had been of favoring an office park at the Riverview location at Town Center, filling it with jobs and reaping the property tax revenue it would generate.
Yet, after the state stripped the city of its redevelopment agency and funding and reduced its property tax revenue from 80 percent to a mere 18 percent, the mayor and the collective members of Santee’s City Council reportedly had a change of heart, or wallet. These legislative, state-imposed new conditions are thus helping to fuel the migration and expansion of faith- based interests in East County.
With more than 20 churches in Santee, Lacey J’s conversion resonates with anticipation and wistful nostalgia, as members of Riverview Community Church’s congregation are excited by the prospect of their upcoming new and more rooted location, while country and western dance enthusiasts are left with recollections of days gone by.
East County resident Frances Kubasco said that she loved the music, the food and especially the dancing, which she looked forward to on weekend nights with friends who shared a passion for frequenting the once highly popular Wagon Wheel and Mulvaney’s.
“I only went a few times to Lacey J’s, but when it was the Wagon Wheel and Mulvaney’s, we used to go regularly. It was such fun and always crowded with locals who shared a love for country music and line dancing,” she stated, adding, “It was the only place you could go to in East County and learn those wonderful dances, like the West Coast wwing and the two-step. On Thursdays, they had free classes earlier in the evening. Now we don’t have a real country and western club in our community,” Kubasco concluded.
San Diego Christian College announced its ribbon cutting ceremony slated for Feb. 23 to celebrate its new campus located at 200 Riverview Parkway in Santee.
The Rock Church consists of two campuses, eight weekend services, the Rock Academy Christian School, Rock U and hundreds of active community groups. Presently located in Point Loma, it will branch out to the city of El Cajon with plans to hold services in July at its new location at 808 Jackman St. in El Cajon.
As the new state legislature that reduced property tax revenue and removed Santee’s redevelopment agency indirectly fostered this environment for faith-based expansion, Riverview Community Church, on a much humbler scale, joins this lofty surge of religious-based growth and reassignment that is sweeping over and significantly shaping the very core of a newly emerging East County, reassigning the place that once was Lacey J’s Saloon to a corner of many residents’ collective memories.
