When Red Dogs first opened in 1975, there was a jukebox playing mostly beach music, as owner Charlie Maultsby served beer and wine to beachgoers who came to Wrightsville Beach for its lively scene. Now, after 41 years, the longtime bar owner is stepping away, after leading the venue through significant changes and winning high-profile fights with the town over liquor licensing.
“There’s never a day that I dreaded coming to work,” Maultsby said. “It was a lot of fun for me. It was better than working in a cubicle.”
Maultsby said he has battled with the town since the bar first opened in 1975, when it was located in the ground floor 5 North Lumina Ave. location that Jimmy’s at Red Dogs currently occupies. While Red Dogs has changed since those early days, now playing club music for a mostly college-aged crowd, Maultsby said the venue has been an integral part of a vibrant nightlife scene that has always drawn crowds to Wrightsville Beach.
“The crowds back then were just as big as now,” Maultsby said, noting that the old Crest Theater would regularly bring in more than 600 people to see bands play, while Wits End across the street also attracted a “rock-and-roll” crowd.
When it first opened, Maultsby said, Red Dogs catered to the “pink and green, penny loafer, yuppie crowd.” Over time, he started playing more rock-and-roll music and using DJs, with new managers pushing the music in a direction more geared for a younger audience.
Over the years, the bar has had many famous visitors, including countless visits from University of North Carolina basketball athletes.
“Everybody all over the state knows Red Dogs,” Maultbsy said.
Despite the conflict with the town, Maultsby said he may be the longest continuous single-owner private club in North Carolina. He recalled a meeting with the town and police during which a resident brought in a collection of cans said to have been picked up outside of the Wrightsville Beach bars, charging the bars with allowing patrons to leave with beer.
“All of the other bar owners just looked at each other and laughed, because at the time, none of us sold beer in cans,” Maultsby said.
When the venue tried to start serving liquor in 1991, the town challenged Maultsby’s application to the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) commission, which still granted the liquor license. Maultsby said one factor in winning that challenge was that the restaurant next door, King Neptune, also served alcohol.
“They don’t want people down here having fun,” Maultsby said. “But that’s why people come down to the beach here, to have fun and enjoy the town. That’s why Wrightsville Beach is on the map.”
He also faced a similar fight with the town when expanding the club to the second floor in 2000, resulting in a court challenge from the town, which it ultimately lost. While the town has argued that Red Dogs, and other private clubs that serve only alcohol, don’t comply with local ordinance, Maultsby successfully argued that state law superseded the town’s authority.
“I’ve learned if you want to get something done, you have to learn who to talk to in Raleigh,” Maultsby said, adding he spent $70,000 in legal fees defending the permit, while the town spent $150,000 in legal fees to challenge it.
While he’s still active in the management, the state’s ABC commission has already granted Jimmy Gilleece, the owner of the downstairs Jimmy’s at Red Dogs, the alcohol permit needed to operate the private club. Maultsby said the two had known each other for a long time and that when Gilleece opened his private club below, they were already talking about a time when he would take over as owner.
Gilleece said he has seen firsthand the impact that Red Dogs has had on the Wrightsville Beach community.
“Every week or two, someone comes in and tells the story about how they met their husband or wife at Red Dogs,” Gilleece said.
Though Maultsby won’t be operating Red Dogs for much longer, he said he’s not retiring just yet.
“I’ll be getting into something,” he said.
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