After 17 years staging concerts, dance classes and poetry nights inside a converted Dixieline Lumber building in North Park, Queen Bee's Arts & Cultural Center is getting ready to leave. Founder Alma Rodriguez plans to relocate the venue next year to the former site of a pawn shop and adjacent music-equipment rental store on El Cajon Boulevard near San Diego State University.
The move, first reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune, would put Queen Bee's on the same stretch of city where Hot Monkey Love Cafe once operated.
Rodriguez told the paper she plans to move into the new space next year.
A Building Caught Between an Estate Fight and a Sale
Queen Bee's current home is more than 90 years old and began life as the Dixieline Lumber building, according to reporting by the Union-Tribune. Rodriguez discovered the building in mid-2008, and Queen Bee's was established that year. The Union-Tribune's earlier coverage described a performance, gallery and studio space hosting Zumba classes, salsa dancing, steampunk bands, youth programs and masquerade balls. The Union-Tribune's 2026 report puts the venue's run of staging music, dance, poetry and private events at the North Park property at 17 years.
The building's fate became entangled with the 2023 death of owner Allen Hitch Jr. His heirs made allegations against Rodriguez, and the dispute became part of a legal battle over Hitch's estate.
A 2024 Sale
The Ohio Street property changed hands in 2024. An earlier Union-Tribune account detailed a sale to developers and plans for townhomes.
Queen Bee's has operated at the North Park property for 17 years, and Rodriguez plans to move the venue next year.
Echoes of Hot Monkey Love
Hot Monkey Love Cafe was operating on El Cajon Boulevard by 2006. A 2006 San Diego Reader profile described the cafe, owned by Alma Felan, as the only all-age venue in the county at the time offering a weekly hip-hop open-mike night, and detailed plans for a relocation that would have expanded the cafe from 2,000 to 5,000 square feet in a building that had most recently housed a church and once operated as Ozzie's Music.
Through the years of legal wrangling and ownership turnover, Queen Bee's kept its doors open. A January 2025 piece in the San Diego Reader noted the venue continued hosting concerts, dance classes, fundraisers and even a church while Rodriguez searched for a new space, describing a lineup that has included live BDSM demonstrations alongside charity events.
A 2024 Gala
Queen Bee's hosted a gala on Dec. 12, 2024.
