The Launching Pad was located at 2375 NE Highway 10, north of 35W.  Although it was often described as being in New Brighton, it was, in fact, in Mounds View.

This first ad below from 1967 describes it in proximity to an arms plant, perhaps explaining its name?

 

From its opening in July 1967 to July 1969, ads styled it as a supper club, with “dancing nightly in the piano bar.”

From the end of 1969 to September 1970, Dee Hilde and the McGuire Brothers were the house band.

 

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Somewhere it says that in 1973 it went from all country to half country, half rock, but it looks like by November 1973 it was all country.

 

 

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In 1976, Sherwin Linton and the Cotton Kings graced the Launching Pad stage.

Sherwin says:

I played the Launching Pad several times in 75/76/77. I have a pretty funny story of a fight that broke out on the dance floor and came over the fence and onto the stage as we were closing a show and I was singing Neil Diamond’s “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.” Blood all over a $2,000 Rhinestone custom-tailored stage suit I was wearing. The owner, Al Hardinger, offered to take it to the best cleaner in town and have it cleaned and he did. Some of the stains did not come out but with the colors of the fabric you could not tell.

The layout of the place was not ideal for a show band with the narrow stage back in the corner and dance floor and the bar between it and the dining and cocktail tables. Consumption of alcohol was high. With today’s laws not many would have made it 100 yards up Hi Way 10 without a DWI.

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In the summer of 1980, the Launching Pad was the site of an Auto Flea Market.

 

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In 1981, after years of complaints, the City of Mounds View Failed to Launch a renewal of the Launching Pad’s liquor license.  The list of grievances was damning against the owners.

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Subsequent occupants of the site included:

• Povlitzski’s on Ten, 1981 – gone pretty quickly
• Loose Ends, owned by Janet M. Loosen – 1982 to June 1990
• Sold in January 1991
• Saturn of St. Paul as of April 1994