Club Iggy's burned on verge of 2018 season

On the morning of January 20th, Club Iggy’s, located at 11337 Avenida Coronado, Rosarito, was burned to the ground.

“Maybe because the club was made pretty much of all with wood and logs,” said Carlos Soria, “and I guess that was to make it easy to rearrange the look of the place in such a short time (for different events).”

Soria, 33, is a business owner and promoter from Tijuana. He was there during last year’s Spring Break and has been coming since 2005-2006, when the Growling Mad Scientists and Too Short performed live at the venue.

Héctor Castelán Medina, the director of the fire department, was reported by Mexican media outlets to have said that the cause of the fire is still unknown and that it was not possible for them to extinguish the fires because of the weather conditions combined with the predominantly wood construction of the club, helped the flames spread very easily.

Michael from Chula Vista passed by the club with his family last year. “I also noticed the straw used as rooftops for some of the bungalows in the beach area,” he said, “those are flammable too.”

Castelán Medina said that they evacuated employees and customers from the closeby shops and that there were no injured people in the establishment, since it was empty and out of service at the time of the fire — which was first called in at 9:45 p.m. (the night before).

On January 26, a post was made on Club Iggy’s Facebook page that read in part: “We have been with you for 19 years, when Nacho “Iggy” Zamudio built his dream that was a success thanks to his creativity to create something different in his city of Rosarito. After his death [in 2013], that dream remained alive together with his wife and daughters but especially his employees who worked at his side.”

Soria remembers first meeting with Iggy about 13 years ago. “I was driving a quad (motorbike) with some friends and we rolled in front of Iggys, and Iggy asked me to stop and said that he ‘knew how to do wheelies.’ He asked me to let him borrow the quad and he let me borrow his yellow H2 Hummer; so we exchanged for 10 minutes.”

Shortly after that, Soria invited his buddies from the Tokyo Pop anime and DVD company in Los Angeles to come party at Iggy’s. “I filmed with Big C there for an episode of Street Fury (which aired on G4TV in 2005),” he said, “that’s when all of the Americans came — it was packed with like 5,000 plus people. Then tourism here really slowed down in 2009 because of the cartel violence.”

Club Iggy’s promoted the Mexicali en la Playa event which had live DJs and brought in patrons from the city of Mexicali to escape their summer heat and other partiers from different parts of Baja California.

“… And now for the last 2 years it's starting to recover because is now safer and the food scene in Baja is growing,” Soria said.

On January 13th, Club Iggy’s posted on their Facebook that they were seeking waiters, cooks and security guards to hire for their 2018 season. Their 2018 Spring Break packages started at about $20 USD which included a pool party, VIP entrance and open bar (all you can drink).

“But that’s now gone and all we have are our Iggy’s memories on Polaroid pictures of the tequila poppers, the piña coladas (served in pineapples), and girls flashing,” Michael said.

“Iggy was really loved and had many happy customers, employees and parties,” Soria said, “and Rosarito will never be the same without his Club Iggy’s.”