Venue: The Stone Pony
Address: 913 Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, NJ 07712
Town: Asbury Park, US

The Stone Pony is a music venue in Asbury Park, New Jersey, known for launching the careers of several New Jersey music legends, including Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. The club opened in 1974. Before the Garden State Parkway made it easier to reach points further south, Asbury Park was a prominent shore vacation destination in New Jersey; since the late 1800s, many city establishments have offered live musical entertainment. The building that would become the Stone Pony once housed a restaurant named Mrs. Jay's, later named Mrs. Jay's Beer Garden, that was frequented by a polyglot community of tourists, high school and college students, and bikers. During the mid-1960s, Mrs. Jay's management began to allow bands to perform. After the restaurant and beer garden went out of business in 1968, allegedly over a waitress wearing a see-through blouse, Mrs. Jay's reopened two doors south. The second incarnation of Mrs. Jays became a notorious biker hangout in its later days before being demolished in the late 1980s. Harley-Davidsons lined entire blocks after cruising the circuit. The building that originally housed Mrs. Jay's reopened in fall 1973 as The Stone Pony. Many of the world's most popular musical artists have played on its stage. In 1991, The Stone Pony filed for bankruptcy after a series of drunk-driving lawsuits. However, the nightclub reopened in 1992. Because of its importance to the music world, there was a national outcry when there was talk of closing the Pony during the late 1990s. The Stone Pony was repeatedly opened and closed as developers targeted Asbury Park through the beginning of the new millennium, and musicians and patrons organized and rallied in support of The Stone Pony. The annual Asbury Park Music Awards ceremony, founded in 1993 as "The Golden T-Bird Awards" and renamed "The Asbury Park Music Awards" in 1995, is usually held at The Stone Pony. The awards recognize excellence in the region's mus