California (Los Angeles Area)
Nightlife (Bars, Discos, Clubs & Cinemas)
Exploring the jungle of LA’s nightlife can be great fun. Everyone you meet claims to be either a rock star or in the movies; half of them aren’t lying. Even the quietest venue offers a chance to eavesdrop on a bit of vapid Less Than Zero dialogue; the most raucous ones will take your breath away. In all the pubs, clubs and discos, you’ll need to be 21 and will almost certainly be asked for ID.

The best sources of listings are LA Weekly and the “Calendar” section in the LA Times at the weekend.

Bars, pubs and coffeehouses
LA’s bars and pubs are rarely the scruffy boozing places found elsewhere in the US, due at least in part to the generally high degree of health consciousness – not to mention the very early (daybreak) starting time of the movie business working day. Coffeehouses are a newer phenomenon, but are now established all over the city as popular meeting places.
  • Al’s Bar, 305 S Hewitt St, downtown (tel 213/625-9703). Post-apocalyptic place in a gritty part of town, with cheap beer and smoke-filled rooms. Best appreciated when there’s a good live line-up. Don’t go if you can’t deal with paying someone to make sure your car isn’t stolen.
  • Barney’s Beanery, 8447 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood (tel 213/654-2287). Well-worn pool-hall bar, stocking over 200 beers. It also serves food, often of marginal quality.
  • Boardners, 1652 N Cherokee Ave, Hollywood (tel 323/462-9621). A likeably unkempt neighborhood bar – a rarity in the heart of Hollywood.
  • Cat’n’Fiddle, 6530 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood (tel 323/468-3800). Boisterous British expat pub with good beers and live music.
  • Dragonfly, 6510 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood (tel 323/466-6111). Disco and house music, with the odd bit of rock at this established hipster hangout.
  • The Dresden Room, 1760 N Vermont Ave, Hollywood (tel 323/665-4294). Wed night is open-mike, otherwise the resident husband-and-wife lounge act takes requests from the crowd of old-timers and hipsters.
  • King’s Road Espresso House, 8361 Beverly Blvd, Hollywood (tel 323/655-9044). Sidewalk cafe popular day and night with West Hollywood’s nuovo beatnik crowd.
  • Lava Lounge, 1533 N La Brea, Hollywood (tel 323/876-6612). Cheesy, retro decor, glowing cocktails and plenty of rock and surf music.
  • The Novel Cafe, 212 Pier Ave, Santa Monica (tel 310/396-8566). Considering the name and the trendy environs, this is a remarkably unpretentious cafe, with good coffees, teas and pastries.
  • The Powerhouse, 1714 N Highland Ave, Hollywood (tel 213/463-9438). Enjoyable heavy-rockers’ watering hole just off Hollywood Blvd; few people get here much before midnight.
  • The Red Setter Irish Pub, 2615 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica (tel 310/449-1811). Formerly McGinty’s, this pub features plenty of darts and beer.
  • Tiki-Ti, 4427 W Sunset Blvd, Hollywood (tel 323/669-9381). Tiny grass-skirted cocktail bar straight out of Hawaii Five-0. The Filipino owners mix deadly concoctions at about $5 a hit.

Clubs and discos
LA’s clubs are among the wildest in the country, ranging from absurdly faddish hangouts to industrial noise cellars. The trendier side of the club scene is, as always, hard to pin down; check the LA Weekly before setting out.
  • Florentine Gardens, 5951 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood (tel 323/464-0706). A fun, unpretentious dance club catering to the under-21 set.
  • Mayan, 1038 S Hill St, downtown (tel 213/746-4287). Latin, fusion and salsa. Get past the doorman and you’re in with LA’s coolest, eager to shake a leg in gorgeous and historic surrounds. Open Fri and Sat; $12. Dress to impress.
  • Union, 8210 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood (tel 323/654-1001). Relaxed supper club with funk, soul and R&B groove room. Frequented by the young actor crowd on Tues nights.
  • The Viper Room, 8852 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood (tel 310/358-1881). Stellar live acts and a famous owner. Best known as the spot where River Phoenix met his end. Cover varies.

Gay and lesbian bars and clubs
  • Arena, 6655 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood (tel 323/462-0714). Many clubs under one huge roof, large dance floors throbbing to funk, Latin and hi-NRG grooves. Also called Circus, it’s mostly men at the Pink Feather on Tues; gay men and women on Fri. Cover $8–12.
  • Detour, 1087 Manzanita, Silverlake (tel 323/664-1189). A friendly and quite inexpensive denim and leather bar.
  • Jewel’s Catch One, 4067 W Pico Blvd, Mid-Wilshire (tel 323/734-8849). Sweaty dance barn, packed with gay men on Wed, women on Thurs.
  • The Palms, 8572 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood (tel 310/652-6188). Mostly house and dance nights at West Hollywood’s longest-established lesbian bar.
  • Rage, 8911 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood (tel 310/652-7055). Very flash gay men’s club playing the latest hi-NRG hits. Drinks are inexpensive, the cover varies. Great Forties tea dance on Sun (no cover).
  • Rudolpho’s, 2500 Riverside Drive, Silverlake (tel 323/662-4021). Every second Sat of the month the “dress up, drag down” dance club, Drag Strip 66, has a different theme. Dressed $10, out of drag $20.
  • 7969, 7969 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood (tel 323/654-0280). West Hollywood’s longest running gay and lesbian disco with drag shows, New Wave, techno and disco and more. Cover $6–10.

Live music
LA has a near-overwhelming choice if you’re looking for live music. Ever since the nihilistic punk bands – Circle Jerks, X, Black Flag – drew the city away from its cocaine-sozzled laid-back West Coast image in the late Seventies and early Eighties, LA’s rock music scene has been excellent. Country music is also fairly prevalent, at least away from trendy Hollywood, and the valleys are hotbeds of country-folk and newly resurgent swing. Jazz, too, is played in a few genuinely authentic downbeat dives, though more commonly found being used to improve the atmosphere of a restaurant. Reggae, though popular with many, is much less common. Salsa is pervasive among LA’s Hispanic population, and is found mostly in the bars of East LA; it’s worth saying that (aside from the places we’ve listed) these are very male-oriented, and female visitors may well feel out of place.
  • Anti-club, 4658 Melrose Ave, Mid-Wilshire (tel 323/661-3913). Located in one of the truly abysmal corners of the city sprawl, this is the other end of the world from upmarket Melrose, with inexpensive beer and an adventurous booking policy.
  • The Baked Potato, 3787 Cahuenga Blvd, North Hollywood (tel 818/980-1615). A small but near-legendary contemporary jazz spot, where many reputations have been forged; $8, or $5 Thurs.
  • Bar Deluxe, 1710 N Las Palmas, Mid-Wilshire (tel 323/469-1991). Bare-bones crimson-lit atmosphere, and a suspended 125-gallon aquarium. Sake and beer served to the beat of live rockabilly.
  • B B King’s Blues Club, 1000 Universal Center Drive, Universal City (tel 818/6-BBKING). Once past the garish exterior of Universal’s CityWalk, it’s all catfish, deep-fried pickle and Southern hospitality. Lucille’s features acoustic blues at the weekend. Full bar, no age limit, low cover.
  • The Conga Room, 5364 Wilshire Blvd (tel 323/938-1696). A high-profile celebrity investment results in a surprisingly appealing feast of Cuban food and Latin music. Cover varies.
  • The Derby, 4500 Los Feliz Blvd, Los Feliz (tel 323/663-8979). Not the original hat-shaped bar on Wilshire, but a throwback to its 1940s heyday. Retro jazz, rockabilly and bebop, with dance lessons to get you up to speed. Drinks are club-pricey, but the circular bar, domed wooden ceiling and swing are hard to resist. Open nightly, music starts at 9pm; $5, free Tues.
  • Doug Weston’s Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood (tel 310/276-6168). Less heavy metal than of old, but still the club for the heaviest riffs and shaggiest manes. $6–15.
  • The Foothill Club, 1922 Cherry Ave, Signal Hill (tel 562/984-8349). A glorious country dance hall from the days when hillbilly was cool. Punk, surf and roots-rock Thurs to Sat. Cover varies.
  • Golden Sails Hotel, 6285 E Pacific Coast Hwy, Long Beach (tel 562/596-1631). Has some of the best reggae bands from LA and beyond on Fri and Sat. $8.
  • House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood (tel 323/848-5100). Incongruous mock sugar shack, with excellent but pricey live music nightly. Good local-name hip-hop, R&B and blues. Very popular with tourists.
  • Kingston 12, 814 Broadway, Santa Monica (tel 310/451-4423). Nightly reggae; nice and small. $10–15.
  • Largo, 432 N Fairfax Ave, Mid-Wilshire (tel 323/852-1073). Intimate cabaret venue with some of LA’s more interesting bands. 18 and over. Cover varies.
  • Luminarias, 3500 Ramona Blvd, Monterey Park, East LA (tel 323/268-4177). A hilltop restaurant where the live salsa is reckoned to be as good as the Mexican food. Fri and Sat; $5.
  • McCabe’s, 3103 W Pico Blvd, Santa Monica (tel 310/828-4497). The back room of LA’s premier acoustic guitar shop; long the scene of excellent and unusual folk and country shows. $10–20.
  • Opium Den, 1605 1/2 N Ivar Ave, Hollywood (tel 323/466-7800). A strip club turned nightclub with an array of upcoming rock and punk acts taking turn on the overly small stage.
  • The Palomino, 6907 Lankershim Blvd, North Hollywood (tel 818/764-4010). Firmly established as the best place to catch visiting C&W singers, also good for R&B and the odd goth gig. $10. Thurs is talent night.
  • The Roxy, 9009 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood (tel 310/276-2222). The showcase of the rock industry’s new signings, intimate and with a great sound system. Cover varies.
  • Whisky-a-Go-Go, 8901 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood (tel 310/535-0579). Recently done up after many years as LA’s most famous rock ’n’ roll club, nowadays mainly hard rock. $10–20.

Comedy clubs
Although the comedy scene in LA is pretty much what you’d get elsewhere in the US, it’s a good place to catch live performances by established television names like Jay Leno and Drew Carey.
  • Comedy & Magic Club, 1018 Hermosa Ave, Hermosa Beach (tel 310/372-1193). Strange couplings of naff magic acts and good-quality comedians.
  • The Comedy Store, 8433 W Sunset Blvd (tel 323/656-6225). Popular comedy showcase spread over three rooms; you can usually turn up on spec at weekends. Always a good line-up, too.
  • Groundlings Theater, 7307 Melrose Ave (tel 323/934-9700). Only the gifted survive at this pioneering improvisation venue.
  • The Ice House, 24 N Mentor Ave, Pasadena (tel 626/577-1895). The comedy mainstay of the valley, very established and fairly safe.
  • The Improvisation, 8162 Melrose Ave (tel 323/651-2583). Prime destination for out-of-town comedy-lovers – so book ahead.
  • LA Connection, 13442 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks (tel 818/784-1868). An improvisation showcase for highly rated obnoxiousness specialists. Seldom less than memorable.

Film
Many major feature films are released in LA months (or years) before they play anywhere else in the world. Short seasons of foreign-language films are often screened at the eight Laemmle Theaters. If you’re after a golden-years-of-film atmosphere, head for one of the historic downtown movie palaces along Broadway, where the delirious furnishings may hold your attention longer than the all-action triple bills. Otherwise, catch new releases in one of the many mall-based multiplexes, like the Beverly Center Cineplex (tel 310/652-7760), the AMC Century 14 (tel 310/553-8900), or the eighteen-screen Universal City complex (tel 818/508-0588).
  • Bing Theater, at the LA County Art Museum, 5905 Wilshire Blvd (tel 323/857-6010). Afternoon screenings of many neglected Hollywood classics. Matinees cost just $2, evening shows $7.
  • Chinese Theatre, 6925 Hollywood Blvd (tel 323/464-8186). Landmark Art Deco cinema. Giant screen and six-track stereo sound make this absolutely the best place to see a big-budget flick, egged on, on opening weekends, by a cheering and whistling crowd.
  • Egyptian Theater, 6712 Hollywood Blvd (tel 323/466-FILM). Newly reopened showcase for classic and foreign films, in the middle of Old Hollywood.
  • El Capitan Theater, Hollywood Blvd at Highland Ave (tel 323/467-7674). Another legendary Hollywood venue, restored to full glory and recently renovated for a second time.
  • New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd (tel 323/938-4038). Imaginative cult double bills.
  • Nuart Theater, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd (tel 310/478-6379). Rare classics, foreign films and documentaries. Be prepared for a lengthy line outside.
  • Silent Movie, 611 N Fairfax Ave (tel 323/655-2520). As its name suggests, silent Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Ramon Navarro thrillers and so on. Every show accompanied by an organist.