{"id":236678,"date":"2026-03-26T00:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/236678\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T00:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:24:14","slug":"a-piece-of-san-pedros-bike-palace-saved-for-history-museum-daily-breeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/236678\/","title":{"rendered":"A piece of San Pedro\u2019s Bike Palace saved for history museum \u2013 Daily Breeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several folks gathered early Wednesday morning, March 25, to watch one of the last pieces of The Bike Palace in San Pedro come down \u2014 the iconic sign on top of the now-shuttered bike shop that sustained \u201cheavy damage\u201d from a fire that started around 9 p.m. on Dec. 23<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 16-by-13-foot sign that can light up has been donated to the San Pedro Heritage Museum, which already has a growing collection of San Pedro memorabilia but is still searching for a physical place to display it. (Talks are underway, said museum President Joshua Stecker, with Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles for some space; \u201cIt looks good,\u201d he said of the prospects, though nothing has been inked.)<\/p>\n

\"Crews<\/p>\n

Crews work to remove the iconic Bike Palace sign on Pacific Ave in San Pedro on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left, Randy Weston and Tony Paze remove the iconic Bike Palace sign on Pacific Ave in San Pedro on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The iconic Bike Palace sign shows signs of wear on Pacific Ave in San Pedro on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left, Randy Weston and Tony Paze prepare to remove the iconic Bike Palace sign on Pacific Ave in San Pedro on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Tony<\/p>\n

Tony Paze, center, describes how he plans to remove the iconic Bike Palace sign on Pacific Ave in San Pedro on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Tony<\/p>\n

Tony Paze, right, prepares to remove the iconic Bike Palace sign on Pacific Ave in San Pedro on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left, Randy Weston and Tony Paze remove the iconic Bike Palace sign on Pacific Ave in San Pedro on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Tony<\/p>\n

Tony Paze works to remove the iconic Bike Palace sign on Pacific Ave in San Pedro on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Firefighters<\/p>\n

Firefighters battle a blaze at The Bike Palace bicycle shop in San Pedro on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (Photo by Raphael Richardson, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Firefighters<\/p>\n

Firefighters battle a blaze in The Bike Palace bicycle shop in San Pedro on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (Photo by Raphael Richardson, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A firefighter runs with a rotary saw as a fire tears through The Bike Palace bicycle shop in San Pedro on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (Photo by Raphael Richardson, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Firefighters<\/p>\n

Firefighters battle a blaze in The Bike Palace bicycle shop in San Pedro on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (Photo by Raphael Richardson, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Services<\/p>\n

Services for Kuzma \u201cMatty\u201d Domancich will be 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 28, at Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church in San Pedro. He died May 18, 2019, at the age of 96. He\u2019s shown here inside the Bike Palace which he owned and operated in San Pedro for many years. (Courtesy Photo: T.J. Tapia)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 13<\/p>\n

Crews work to remove the iconic Bike Palace sign on Pacific Ave in San Pedro on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bike Palace, 1600 S. Pacific Ave., B, was a San Pedro mainstay for more than 50 years.<\/p>\n

And on Wednesday, owner Tony Jabuka said the shop, for now, has signed a lease for a new store on Western Avenue at Summerland Street, where the Badfish Skate Surf Shop has been operating across from the Peck Park Skate Park, Jabuka said. The new shop, he said, is near Randy\u2019s Donuts.<\/p>\n

He said he expects to have a grand opening in about a month, he said.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Jabuka said, he would still like to salvage part of the original Pacific Avenue building, though.<\/p>\n

The city has put a request in for demolition, he said, but meetings are continuing.<\/p>\n

\u201cA number of people have looked at it trying to determine whether the outside walls could be saved; they\u2019re 100-year-old, unreinforced brick is what the city is telling us \u2014 and not structurally sound,\u201d Jabuka said. \u201cBut could we reinforce them? Would it be worth it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The front of the building \u2014 long hidden by corrugated metal \u2014 are arches, he said, and his hope would be to at least keep the facade and then rebuild \u201cusing the original look.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat building has a really unique front to it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As for the sign, he said he was glad it could be salvaged and will be on display someday.<\/p>\n

The Pacific Avenue building was constructed in 1925, according to owner Jabuka<\/a>, and originally was home to a Buick dealer, San Pedro Motors.<\/p>\n

Longtime San Pedro resident Matty Domancich<\/a>, who died in 2019 at the age of 96 after selling the store, was the original Bike Palace owner.<\/p>\n

He was a lifelong San Pedro resident and one of the town\u2019s best-known boosters. Jabuka, who came with his family from Croatia to San Pedro when he was 7 years old, is Domancich\u2019s godson \u2014 their fathers were close friends and attended San Pedro High together \u2014 and Jabuka went to work for Domancich\u00a0in the shop when he was in college.<\/p>\n

Domancich\u00a0sold the store to Jabuka in 1987 \u2014 and the latter has owned and operated it ever since.<\/p>\n

For decades, it was the place many San Pedro families went to buy their bicycles, including those that became very special under-the-tree Christmas gifts every year.<\/p>\n

Some 10 to 15 bikes, in fact, had been on order for Christmas before the fire, Jabuka said in a December interview. But because of the blaze, they weren\u2019t delivered. A collection of sports memorabilia that was displayed on the store\u2019s wall was also destroyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel so bad for my customers,\u201d Jabuka said after the fire in December. \u201cI\u2019m making a list and I wish it had been one day later so we could have delivered (the bikes for Christmas). We\u2019re working through all of that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were no reported injuries to firefighters or civilians in the blaze but the store has remained closed and boarded up since then and could face at least partial demolition.<\/p>\n

There were at least 30 lithium-ion batteries at The Bike Palace, which required specialized handling and monitoring to prevent hazardous reignition, the Los Angeles Fire Department said at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several folks gathered early Wednesday morning, March 25, to watch one of the last pieces of The Bike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,3172,767,131,133,132,47,137,100,1439],"class_list":["post-236678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-harbor-area","tag-local-business","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-news","tag-san-pedro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}