LA Weekly

It was only a decade or so ago, but it's getting harder and harder to remember that then-California Coastal Commissioner Ruth Galanter rode into her L.A. City Council office under the banner of "slow growth." Her mantra then: too much traffic, too much pollution, too many concessions to developers. Her......

BEST PLACE TO SCORE GRASS AT 4 A.M. Pico and (Note: Drugs are bad. Don’t do them. They will eat away at your seemingly perfect life, turning your precious angelic spawn into underachieving little bed-hoppers, and punch you a one-way ticket to Jerry Springerville. They are the number-one cause of......

BEST HARDCORE COFFEE Peet’s Coffee & Tea. Before the onset of our nation’s biggest drug problem — Starbucks — there was Peet’s. Since 1966, Peet’s has roasted, sold and served some of the world’s finest dark-roast coffees (and damn good blends) to people lined up each morning all over the......

BEST LAWN-MOWING UNIFORMS Goodwill on Glenoaks. This section of Glenoaks Boulevard is your prototypical old white suburban neighborhood. This means the local thrift stores usually stock lots of neatly pressed ’60s and late-’50s men’s sportswear in good condition — and this is the case at the Glenoaks Goodwill. You’ll find......

HOME COOKING FROM THE KITCHEN OF WASHINGTON, JOHNSON & NIXON Georgia. There’s no sign for Georgia, and the restaurant itself is tucked away within a relatively nondescript green concrete building at the La Brea end of Melrose. But you’ll have no trouble finding the joint. Just look for the swarm......

IT’S AMAZING WHAT THEY’RE DOING WITH MODERN UPHOLSTERY THESE DAYS Rose Furniture Upholstery. One of the few things I inherited from my maternal grandfather was this incredibly comfortable old green couch. But after moving to San Francisco, where a Haight Street mouse made a nest in the thing, and then......

BEST FREE SWING SCENE IN A CAFETERIA Schabers Cafeteria. Aren’t you tired of that whole fake lounge scene? On weekends, at the last surviving Schabers (built in 1954), you can get a taste of the real deal: big bands that played for the WWII set the first time around. Saturdays,......

BEST FWOOMP! Buck Sam Kong’s Siu Lum Pai Kung Fu Association. "Okay! Now we do some real kung fu." These are the words that set the class to groaning, because we know that for the next long stretch, we are going to be in pain. Holding the positions of the......

WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR BAND’S NAME Akbar. Open only since New Year’s Eve 1996, this friendly enclave with Moorish décor and a jukebox full of local faves (Extra Fancy, Kristian Hoffman, Glue — plus cool "oldies" like Bowie, Siouxsie, Blondie, etc.) has fast become a Silver Lake institution. The bartenders......