House of Blues to Open Club at Disneyland Hotel

House of Blues will open its first Orange County nightclub at the Disneyland Hotel in 2000 when the theme park’s flagship hotel undergoes an expansion.

Michael Silver, the hotel’s food and beverage manager, said the club and Disney have reached a tentative agreement on opening a club near the company’s Anaheim theme park.

Disney owns 11% of the West Hollywood-based entertainment chain.

Chris Stephenson, House of Blues’ senior vice president of sales and marketing, said the chain is working with Disney to finalize details such as the size and exact location of the club. The two sides have not yet signed a contract, he said.

“We’re glad our partners want us to be on board with their new development,” Stephenson said. “We would want to complement their overall offering.”

Disney is in the midst of a $1.4-billion expansion of its 43-year-old Anaheim theme park, adding a second gate called Disney’s California Adventure that is scheduled to open in 2001.

House of Blues is a restaurant and nightclub chain that features nationally touring blues, rock and jazz acts. The company has clubs in West Hollywood, Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, Orlando, Fla., and Myrtle Beach, S.C. A club in Las Vegas is scheduled to open early next year.

The company explored opening a club at Irvine Spectrum Center earlier this year, but canceled those plans in May. At the time, sources said Disney exercised its veto power over that deal because it might draw visitors away from its sports and entertainment venues in Anaheim.

Stephenson said any plans at the Spectrum are on hold while House of Blues negotiates with Disney.

“We’re certainly prioritizing Disney and hope . . . we get everything together,” he said.

The owner of two potential competitors, the Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana and the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, said earlier this year that the House of Blues would fail if it opened a club in Orange County.

“We’ll go to war with them,” said Gary Folgner, who also operates a club in Santa Barbara.

But Stephenson said the House of Blues has its own drawing power and will do fine.

“We’re very market-aware. We do a lot of research,” he said. “We would not build something we did not think would be a success.”