And if This is It, I Had a Ball: A Farewell to Bars in Los Angeles
My last drink at The Varnish - a Greenpoint.
About 7 years ago now, North Hollywood’s Bar One ceased operations after 10 years in business. I had patronized the teensy wine and beer bar since I was a novice craft beer drinker, back when Chimay was considered the height of the art form. Bar One’s closure was as painless as these things can be, widely publicized with enough notice for the faithful to pay our respects, but for the first time it dawned on me - the places I love might not always be here. Since then, I’ve learned that not only can places close, they can also change, go downhill, shift their concept, shut down with no notice, have a devastating fire, go viral for racism or withholding pay. Surprise at the news of a bar closure seems almost cute, something that can only happen to someone who hasn’t lost much yet. 7 years later, I have.
I don’t know if things are changing faster than usual or if I’m just at the right age to notice changes and opine about “back in my day.” LA is where I’m from, so it’s where I’m staying, and maybe being rooted in one spot makes it natural to notice changes over the long term. It does seem like there’s been a wave of restaurant and bar closures that are getting hard to ignore. And why wouldn’t there be. We’re living in a strange time. It’s not as simple as opening back up in May of 2021 and the good times are here again. We emerged into a different world where everything is much more expensive and people are more hostile. Not exactly ideal conditions in an industry that was always difficult. I still miss Studio City’s Bellwether, one of the first places I was bummed to lose due to Covid, but that place was never really anything beyond a neighborhood restaurant that had been there a handful of years. What I’m noticing, and finding more troubling, are the closures of spots I considered successful and established. And with The Varnish shuttering most recently, I feel the need to name and pay tribute to these places, which I’d categorize as either “restaurants with good drinks” or “bars with good food,” that have closed in the last 6-8 months.
Former Cool Spot Mohawk Bend closed with not much notice. I happened to visit with a friend in from Brooklyn who always liked their vegan potato pizza. We couldn’t help noticing that the once very popular place for bad first dates was dead on a Saturday night. It almost became a joke when her boyfriend would order a beer and the waitress would check, let him know they were out of that one, and then he’d ask for another which the waitress would check and report that that one was also out. I think that happened 4 times? Bad sign for a bar with that many beer taps. Then a week later, they made the closure announcement on social media. Not shocking given our recent experience, but it was crazy to consider how far it had fallen past the peak.
The Federal anchored the NoHo arts district for 12 years and my personal story for about as long - I went the first month they were open, and the last. A hundred times in between for dinner, brunch, happy hour, debrief cocktails after seeing a movie at the Laemmle (which, by the way, that Laemmle theater is also closing). It was a lifeline during the pandemic with to-go Painkillers and a parking lot patio, and they had some truly memorable food items. Something they called Dirty Chips introduced me to Fresno chiles, an ingredient I’m always happy to see in a guacamole or hamachi crudo.
Mezcalero downtown had a fantastic happy hour. I don’t really have any notable memories of going there, but their guacamole was good.
At Spring Street Bar, you could get really excellent sandwiches and craft beer. In the mid-10s, Phantogram had played at the free Grand Park 4th of July celebration, and my feet were so sore walking in cheap red Target flats up Spring, but I was replenished by the space and a sandwich with a bag of Zapps. The sandwiches didn’t come back after Covid, and when I visited this past New Years Eve it was basically a nondescript bar with no character or special sauce. You used to be able to stay on the same block of Spring Street and drink at multiple great bars without even crossing the street.
Over on Broadway, Bernadette’s was masculine but non-threatening, with decor (Garfield phone, The Noid figurine) that actually felt like someone’s cozy lived-in basement, not like a cheesy TGI Friday’s affectation. The bartenders played music you’d heard before and you could order loaded tots from Buddy’s next door for $4. Buddy’s closed first, then Bernadettes, and now the concept in the former Bernadette’s space is a wine bar that features tinned fish. And next door to that, there was Clacson, an aperitivo spot that had a truly excellent Italian sandwich shop up front called E. Stretto. Man, I was sad to lose that prosciutto sandwich. Clacson became Chatterbox and then The Grayson, and Stretto has become a torta shop, so it isn’t all bad. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will.
It was so good in downtown Los Angeles for so long. A new bar was always opening. Just a few years later, you think about places and realize - I haven’t been there since Covid. You’ll remember some spot you ducked into once or twice when it was hot outside. It was New Orleans themed? Nice bartenders. You’ll look up if it’s still open and of course, it isn’t. The new hotel that took over the former Ace Hotel isn’t even opening up their ground floor restaurant. What a waste.
Homebound Brew House opened in a renovated former Harvey House restaurant in Union Station. It’s not that the food was that great, but a. They had good game day specials, making it a perfect spot to pregame before getting on the shuttle to Dodger Stadium, and b. The space was absolutely beautiful, timeless art deco with huge windows giving it the appearance of filtered sunlight. They (or the bar group) spent a lot of time and money restoring the space. Now Union Station is going to use it for private events, which is some bullshit if you ask me. I hate the idea of that historic space being inaccessible to the public outside of paying multi tens of thousands of dollars.
Stout Burger shut down all their locations so abruptly we were actually on our way to one when we thought to look up the holiday weekend hours and were like, uh, Google says Permanently Closed. We ended up eating a disappointing burger at Laurel Tavern while eavesdropping on a guy yammering vaguely fascist talking points at his date. Stout was my 2nd or 3rd favorite burger, outside Fathers Office, which is still kickin’ but come to think of it the Arts District location has been emptier than usual recently.
I only went to Faith and Flower a couple of times, but my BFF and I had one of the top 10 nights of our lives there in 2018 before the Drake show at Staples. Make no mistake, I’m Team Kendrick, but goddamn that show was a highlight of my concertgoing life - the energy, the production value, the year of God’s Plan, Kiki do you love me, bringing out LeBron riiiiight post signing with the Lakers and Travis Scott to do Sicko Mode. It’s a 2018 period piece, he was the zeitgeist. I gave my friend a long necklace to borrow, and a rich-looking woman complimented her on it. She had several milk punches. Faith and Flower didn’t last long into COVID, Drake is, well, Drake, and my friend took a job in Austin. Bummers all around.
I haven’t been back to Jumbo’s Clown Room or Star Garden. Truthfully, Star Garden was always a bit embarrassing but could be a good time, then shitty union-busting management made it cost-prohibitive to patronize anymore. All power to the dancers.
The phrase “end of an era” is thrown around but legitimately worth using when it comes to The Varnish shutting down. An era in LA, and a pioneer of sorts. In 2009, who had heard of a SPEAKEASY in the back of a restaurant? A Bartender’s Choice cocktail, where maybe you specify a spirit and general preference but the drink is a surprise? Cocktails made by foxy bartenders wearing suspenders and old timey arm bands? It’s so ubiquitous it became a cliché, but those are the trends they helped usher in. The drinks were always very good. Nothing had better happen to Cole’s. I can’t keep losing sandwiches in this town.
Look - people waxing nostalgic can be obnoxious, and whining about restaurants and bars closing seems particularly tone-deaf when I’m just a consumer - employees and staff are far more impacted by closures, obviously. No one has a right to places they love staying open forever in what is, by all accounts, an extraordinarily difficult time to be operating a restaurant. You could even argue that we’re still spoiled as hell with plenty of quality places remaining. But in that sense, the vastness and density of Los Angeles might actually work against the individual restaurant. I go out frequently, but not usually to the same place, week after week. You just can’t, in a place with so much to offer.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve tried to embrace the notion that endings make space for something new to begin. The pandemic was poisonous to the restaurant industry, but some places managed to open, thrive, and even expand. Prime Pizza, Hanks Bagels, For the Win, Home State, Danny Boy, Ggiata, surely more that aren’t coming to mind now, all managed to open second or additional locations, which is amazing. And hey - stuff opens. Different concepts emerge in the same address, probably several times over in the life of a commercial restaurant space. The dearly departed Bar One became Mirabelle Wine Bar, which doesn’t have the former’s punk ethos but does have excellent lighting. This cycle has been happening long before I got here, and will happen long after I’m gone. I know that. I’m still allowed to lament that things change, because what is getting older if not lamenting that things change, and I can still tip my glass to what was there before while embracing the Here and Now (which, by the way, is the name of another downtown bar that closed, and I’ll miss their wintery Christmas theming this holiday season). But I remain focused on what’s here when there’s still so much to try. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will.
