National acts headline this rocking, historic music club known for launching Springsteen & Bon Jovi. The Stone Pony, one of the world’s best known music venues, opened its doors on Feb. 8, 1974 in a building which formerly housed a popular restaurant called Mrs. Jay’s. Founders John P. “Jack” Roig and Robert “Butch” Pielka first met while working in a club on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights. Roig purchased the building which then housed an abandoned disco called The Magic Touch, and enlisted the managerial skills and construction talents of friend and former co-worker Pielka as general manager and minority partner. For many years, Pony staff and early patrons believed the club’s name came to Pielka in a dream. But in late December of 2014, Roig revealed that he was out with a young woman in October of 1973, and she was wearing a shirt with small horses all over the front of it. Jack says the shirt inspired the name. Neither Butch nor Jack could not foresee that their venture would become an integral and irreplaceable part of Asbury Park history. The Stone Pony was about to take a prominent place in an evolving music scene which began at clubs like the Upstage, the Student Prince, and the Sunshine-In.