Bars & Clubs

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• Ye Best Pineapple-Festooned Groggery of Rosemead (1967)

  Bahooka Family Restaurant

  Tiki- and Polynesian-themed eateries and bars were once the height of fashion. Today, they are a tragically nigh-extinct breed. (Beloved cocktail shack Tiki-Ti continues to thrive on Sunset by remaining small and retaining demand; even flagship behemoth Trader Vic’s finally shuttered its legendary Beverly Hills location, though a modern-looking location opened at L.A. Live.) They simply don’t make ’em like… More >>

• Best Beefcake(s) in Weho

  Hamburger Mary’s

  Bingo, boy toys, beer and beef, anyone? Hamburger Mary’s may be the only place on earth where you can enjoy all of these at once. Its “Legendary Bingo” nights on Wednesdays and Sundays ain’t your grandma’s game scene, but if you took her here, we bet she’d never want to leave. Fab prizes, fabber getups and celeb guests calling out… More >>

• Best Rock Bar of Fame (1957)

  The Troubadour

  It’s been a long time since comedian Lenny Bruce performed and got arrested on obscenity charges at The Troubadour in 1957, but the West Hollywood live-music venue on Santa Monica Boulevard still packs ’em in and pours drinks freely with a sense, to quote an old Neil Young song, that it’s better to burn out than fade away. Patrons and… More >>

• Best Punky Time

  Part Time Punks

  Before indie acts du jour score a headlining spot at Spaceland or the Echo or blog-beloved FYF, you’re likely to catch ’em on Part Time Punks’ stage, Sundays at the Echo. Five years strong, the live music and DJ dance party from Michael Stock (manning Punks solo since his partner split last year) remains both a big new-band breaker (No… More >>

• Best bit of Chinese Kitsch (1941)

  Hop Louie

  We’re not gonna bullshit ya. Hop Louie is not a destination for great Chinese food, especially in a city that actually does have great Chinese food. But Hop Louie is an experience, a trip, a cultural artifact. And in the right state of mind, it’s just plain fun. In the middle of Chinatown since 1941, Hop Louie has atmosphere to… More >>

• 405 Reasons to Love This Bar

  West Lounge & Restaurant

  You’ve driven past the cylindrical Angeleno Hotel on the 405 at Sunset Boulevard a thousand times without realizing the penthouse is the West Lounge & Restaurant, which offers a “Wow!” view in a sleek, dark setting catering to stylish European travelers as well as locals who love its happy hour Monday through Thursday. Lounge manager Michael Burnett brags, rightly, that… More >>

• Best Strip Club to Bring Your Girlfriend (1970)

  Jumbo’s Clown Room

  Many women don’t enjoy strip clubs. This can be an issue for guys who enjoy seeing their girlfriend face-to-chest with another woman’s boobs. In this perverted dilemma, the answer is Jumbo’s Clown Room, an intimate venue that for more than four decades has allowed its female employees to call themselves “dancers” without patrons rolling our eyes behind their backs. These… More >>

• Best Chinatown Cool (1946)

  Grand Star Jazz Club

  A crucial scene in the movie Collateral features Tom Cruise taking his de facto hostage, Jamie Foxx, to a cool, laid-back jazz club, where they listen to an authentic, tastefully smooth combo before Cruise invites the band leader over to their table for conversation, and then calmly blows him away. That scene was shot at Quon Bros. Grand Star Jazz… More >>

• Best Venue to Explore the Fringes of the Underground

  Show Cave - CLOSED

  Run by curators Eric Nordhauser and Hazel Hill McCarthy, Show Cave is easily one of this city’s most eclectic and imaginative venues, hosting everything from obscure performance-art videos to deafening hardcore bands. The one thing Show Cave’s bookings have in common is uninhibited experimentation — the kind of free-for-all, get-yer-freak-on weirdness encouraged by a long line of great art enthusiasts.… More >>

• EXTENDING CITY’S SOUL WAY OUT WEST (1931)

  Harvelle's

  We all know that Santa Monica and the Far Westside ain’t got no soul, right? That everything west of Centinela has traded its authentic funkiness for safety, comfort and that overrated sea breeze? Harvelle’s in Santa Monica torpedoes that impression. Harvelle’s is a speakeasy-ish old club decorated in mostly black and red and dripping with cool-cat, “uptown” fanciness from another… More >>

• Best Queer Stand-Up Night

  Drunk on Stage

  There is a plethora of stand-up nights in L.A., but few cater to the queer crowd like the weekly show Drunk on Stage. Located inside a small space in Akbar, a laid-back, unpretentious bar in Silver Lake, talented queer and queer-friendly comics perform every Tuesday night at 8 p.m. before a welcoming crowd. The dimly lit, Arabian-themed room makes you… More >>

• Best Place for Playas

  Playhouse

  All hot spots have a shelf life these days, but Playhouse, which opened last year, seems to be playing hardball in its bid to stay fresh. The mega-club from Elie Samaha (Roxbury, the Green Door) and Rob Vinokur (Crobar NYC, Miami’s Goddess) transformed the old Fox Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard near Wilcox into a circus-themed dance-o-rama last year; it remains… More >>

• BEST HISTORIC HOME (1927)

  The Windsor Apartments

  The Windsor Apartments, anchoring the corner of Seventh and Catalina streets with its stately Tudor style, opened in 1927. Owner Samuel Rabinowich operated the hotel/residence within spitting distance of the grand Ambassador Hotel, at a time when the neighborhoods surrounding Wilshire Boulevard were among L.A.’s classiest addresses. An outdoor garden restaurant called the Windsor Inn opened at the same time,… More >>

• Best Insane British Soccer Pub With Hot Bartender

  White Harte

  If you weren’t at the White Harte, a British pub in Woodland Hills, for the World Cup last summer, you missed a raucous, rivalrous day at one of the most soccer-addled joints in Southern California: Italians at some tables, Germans at others, Argentines at others, Brits everywhere. For most of the year, when soccer isn’t hot, this popular, charming… More >>

• Best Pico Fabulous (1972)

  Jewel’s Catch One

  Jewel’s Catch One started in 1972 as the nation’s very first gay black disco, but that historical treasure has morphed with the times. The business now devotes the cavernous, three-story wooden structure to different theme nights, like the industrial–techno favorite Das Bunker on Fridays, the offbeat hip-hop/R&B/old-school/house party Club 4067 on Saturdays and the truly odd and wonderfully eccentric alternative… More >>

• Best Place To Mak

  Dim Mak Tuesdays at Cinespace

  Too many “dickheads” in ugly T-shirts and bad ’80s gear... You’re sick of Steve Aoki... Yada, yada, yada. Haters can say what they will about Dim Mak Tuesdays, the spazomatic dance night that has packed Cinespace on Tuesdays for the past five years, but there’s no denying the night’s longevity and enduring cachet. The term “secret special surprise guests” gets… More >>

• Best Bar to Raise a Glass to Dean Martin (1964)

  Dan Tana’s

  With its red-and-white checkered tablecloths, black-tuxedoed waiters and well-preserved regulars from roughly the time it opened back in 1964, Dan Tana’s could be a favorite dinner-and-drinks spot from The Godfather. The old-school feel draws people famous and not-so-famous, and long waits are common. The overflow heads to the long wooden bar, a classic L.A. hangout and celebrity-watching perch. It’s a… More >>

• Most Bodacious Basement

  Cavern Club Theatre

  Opened in the summer of 1994 by Mr. Dan and Paul V (of the legendary Dragstrip 66), Cavern Club Theatre was initially created as a home for the live drag soap-opera-sitcom “The Plush Life” (which ran from 1994 to 2002). Dan took the reins booking the theater soon after, and today Cavern, located below Casita del Campo restaurant in Silver… More >>

• Best Club to Party Like “The Greatest Generation” (1928)

  Maxwell DeMille’s Cicada Club

  Situated in the 1928 Art Deco Oviatt Building, Maxwell DeMille’s Cicada Club keeps the glamour of the ’20s through ’40s alive with vintage orchestras and Old Hollywood entertainment and dining. Grab the prix-fixe menu for $49 a person on Sunday nights, or skip dinner, pay the $10 entry fee and dance the night away. Old-school drinks such as the Moscow… More >>

• Best Place to Party Like You’re Still in College

  Koreatown’s R Bar

  Yes, Koreatown’s R Bar is essentially unmarked, and yes, you’ll have to give the bouncer the password through a window in the thick wooden door if you want to enter (call ahead or check their Twitter feed before you go to find out the open-sesame phrase of the day), but once inside, the vibe is pretty much the exact opposite… More >>

• Best Rock Landmark to Get Ripped on the Strip (1972)

  Rainbow Bar & Grill

  It may be a nostalgia pit, but the Rainbow Bar & Grill’s colorful history goes beyond the hairsprayed metal hordes that cover its walls in photos and memorabilia. In the ’70s (it opened in ’72 with an Elton John party) it was the hangout for everyone from Led Zeppelin to John Lennon, and even the King himself, Elvis, who frequented… More >>

• THE BEST PLACE TO GET A JUMP ON TOMORROW’S CULT HITS, TODAY

  Screamfest Horror Film Festival

  With an eerie knack for predicting the next terrifying hit, the Screamfest Horror Film Festival has been called the “Sundance of Horror.” Known for discovering cult favorite Paranormal Activity long before it became a box-office hit, the largest horror film festival in the U.S. screens the latest films from independent filmmakers from around the world. The festival has introduced several indie… More >>

• Best Cure for the Mondays

  Mustache Mondays at La Cita

  It’s hips, not upper lips, that make Mustache Mondays one of the liveliest, lushest gay dance clubs in town. The amiable energy at this party never quits, and the floor always feels like a warm (sometimes too warm) and inviting place, no matter what your sexual preference is, or how fierce your dance moves may be. Mustache actually hopped around… More >>

• Best Club for Sinful Pleasures

  Bar Sinister

  The term “Goth” became a dirty word about a decade ago (maybe longer), but that hasn’t stopped night-crawlers beguiled by all things gloomy and decadent from searching out macabre environments to haunt. Gothic clubs in L.A. are, in fact, more popular than ever. “Bewitched bashes, fetishy fetes, death-rock dungeons” — call them what you will, when it comes to destinations… More >>

• Best Gay History Lesson, With Drag Queens (1967)

  El Barcito

  In 1967, two years before the famous Stonewall gay rebellion in New York City, the Los Angeles Police Department raided what today is known as El Barcito, but was once the Black Cat Tavern, a gay establishment on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. In the early-morning hours of New Year’s Day, the LAPD beat up and arrested patrons and employees… More >>

• All Singing, All Dancing, All Made Up on the Spot

  Opening Night: The Improvised Musical

  On Friday nights, when you need cheering up, go see Opening Night: The Improvised Musical (now in its 12th year) at IOWest. Guaranteed laughs. An upper. For only $10 (and you can use your ticket next time for a $5 admission), the cast improvises an hourlong Broadway-style musical. They’re so adept at this complex form that you’ll swear it’s not… More >>

• Best Comedy Ghosts (1972)

  Ciro's at the Comedy Store

  Before it was the Comedy Store, this was a club called Ciro’s. Some say it was Mob-run. Others say illegal abortions were performed at the club on showgirls who worked there. Some say there are bodies buried on the property in the back. Regardless, rational people say they have experienced many strange things, often with witnesses: The sound of footsteps when… More >>

• Best Greg Louganis-Themed Bar (1963)

  The Spotlight Room

  Established in 1963, the Spotlight Room, or just the Spotlight, is one of the oldest gay bars in L.A. Located on Cahuenga Boulevard a block south of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with its huge sign out front, it’s an old-fashioned dive bar for mostly gay men, with a regular crowd of older guys mixed with younger lads as the… More >>

• It Takes a Valley Village

  Pat’s Cocktails

  Pat’s Cocktails in Studio City still has a mildly dangerous air from the days when fights broke out here, and that’s part of the edgy fun at this hopping tavern that features different excellent blues or jazz or rock bands every night. The bouncer is almost as broad as he is tall, the bartenders are friendly, the beers and wines… More >>

• Best ‘70s Spot to Get Shell-Shocked (1972)

  Brennan’s Pub

  When you’re down at the beach around Marina del Rey, take a look around and you’ll see several great dive bars with a sense of history. If you think you know the Westside, you don’t if you haven’t been to Brennan’s Pub on Lincoln, an institution of sorts since 1972. The same owner/proprietor has been offering up cheap eats and… More >>

• Best Bar You All Ruined (1940)

  The Short Stop

  The Short Stop has been the clubhouse for two very distinct “fraternities” — formerly some of L.A.’s toughest cops, and recently, Eastside hipster kids. Starting in 1940, this multiroom wooden structure served for years as the unofficial precinct house for LAPD officers working the adjacent neighborhoods. It was a lively, no-holds-barred, sometimes brutal off-duty party, where even uninitiated rookie cops… More >>

• Best Girlie Gigs

  Crazy Girls

  “Girls, Girls, Girls,” “Hot for Teacher,” “You Shook Me all Night Long”... Rock ’n’ roll and strip clubs have always had a symbiotic connection. So when infamous Hollywood bikini bar Crazy Girls started showcasing live rock bands on stage for its Rockabye Wednesdays, it was a no-brainer. The acts are always gritty and loud (Angus Khan, The Morlocks, Butcher Babies)… More >>