We love bars.
For the drinks. The camaraderie. The good times.
And if they happen to teach us ninja-like marksmanship with a throwing ax or turn us into pinball wizards in the process, all the better.
Today, we pay tribute to the L.A. drinking dens that come with a bit of extra entertainment on the side. Bars with action and cool games and the racing of diminutive reptiles for you to share with your fellow humans.
Come grab a beer with L.A. TACO as we lead you to various diversions and amusements at 13 of L.A.’s favorite bars, from turtle racing in Venice and hitting things with your fist in West Hollywood to kicking back as a world-famous DJ offers a soundtrack to your afternoon highball in Highland Park.
Bottoms up and playing-thumbs out!
For Vintage Video Games
EightyTwo ~ Downtown
L.A. has a healthy scattering of bars that allow you to drink while playing video games. We like bouncing between Burgertime and a peanut butter stout at Downtown’s EightyTwo, which has two halves crammed with vintage video games and pinball. Pair a Princess Peach (vodka, lemon, peach puree, and agave) with a few sessions of Rampage and maybe you can cancel your chat with the therapist for the week. It's worth a shot.
707 E. 4th Pl. Los Angeles, CA 90013. Closest Metro line and stop: Bus line 40 3rd/Alameda.
For Melodically Yelling “Bingo!” Beside Drag Divas
Hamburger Mary’s ~ West Hollywood
Think bingo’s only for retirement homes? Then you haven’t been to the long-running "Legendary Bingo" at Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood. A guaranteed rowdy good time, the Sunday and Wednesday evening spectacles typically involve a lot of booze and a lot of laughs as a bewigged lady plays your hilarious host. The repartee involves inside jokes that recall a slightly more sophisticated Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, all while raising money for over 200 non-profits. “Quack quack!” You’d get it if you've been. Just watch your head for the flying ballots that may be thrown at your head if you dare try to win.
8288 Santa Monica Blvd. West Hollywood, CA 90046. Closest Metro line and stop: Bus Line 4 - “Santa Monica/Sweetzer.”
For Honing Your Inner Paul Bunyan
Sauced BBQ & Spirits ~ El Segundo
Technically, no one’s ever told us not to drink and juggle sharp instruments. From what we remember. We’re all in on hurling hatchets at a big wooden target at Sauced BBQ & Spirits in El Segundo, in between sips of an on-draft Midnight Lasagna pilsner and bites of a smoked dinosaur beef rib. It’s a little like bowling, only with more ducking and group puns along the lines of “hey, back dat ax up.” Last but not least, we get the feeling we’ll use the extremely specific skills we’ve obtained here someday. You’ll understand once you see us nursing Old Fashioneds in the midst of a full-on zombie outbreak, hatchet in hand.
2015 Park Pl. El Segundo, CA 90245. Closest Metro lines and stop: 109 Bus stop at Park Pl at Plaza El Segundo.
For Practicing Your Handstyles
Dwit Gol Mok ~ Koreatown
In the maze of this late-night Koreatown pub, between the golden pitchers of lager and plates of gilded panjeon, lies an opportunity. The chance to become a person-of-letters, so to speak. Because the walls of this multistory tangle of drinking nooks come completely graffitied in an assortment of languages and characters. Meaning... no one really cares if you want to get up yourself and add a tag or two to the place with your own fat permanent marker. In fact, no one really seems to care what you do here, so focused are they on efficiently serving DWG's great drinking food. And if they do, just don’t tell them we sent you. There's also karaoke, if graffiti isn't your thing.
3275 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90010. Closest Metro lines and stop: Metro B and D Lines or Bus Lines 18, 20, 204, 720 or 754 - "Wilshire/Vermont Station."
For Striking Out, In the Good Way
Shatto 39 Lanes
As L.A.’s favorite neighborhood bowling alleys get snatched up by big corporate names or shuttered by mixed-use developers, we point you to a classic: Koreatown’s Shatto 39 Lanes, which looms as iconically large in many Angelenos' memories as the Santa Monica Pier or Hollywood Sign. With more than 60 years at this nostalgic address, the vintage lanes are many, the beer list long, and there are additional assets like racing simulators and zombie-mowing video games in an arcade, plus foosball, pool, and onion rings and mozzarella sticks of an usually bright orange shade. It’s like the Big Lebowski meets Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island in here.
3255 W. 4th St. Los Angeles, CA 90020. Closest Metro lines and stop: Bus Line 204 - “Vermont/4th” or Bus Lines 16 and 754 - "Vermont/3rd."
For Seven Seconds of Mechanical Heaven
Saddle Ranch Chop House ~ West Hollywood
Everyone winds up here eventually, whether dining with sightseeing family members who came to town and stayed on the Strip despite your best advice, or finding yourself in a weekend meat market as wing to a desperate friend.
It looks like a Knotts Berry Farm set, with its pronounced western fetishes, but does allow you a virtual reality session of sorts with a mechanical bull. Ever-present at the front of the restaurant and bar, it bucks and swivels as you attempt to show off your sick, cumbia-honed hip-isolations or simply try not to look stupid. And should you find yourself with any pent-up anger, as a trip to Saddle Ranch can provoke odd emotions, there’s a coin-operated boxing game in a small outer back chamber, where you punch a speed bag with everything you’ve got to get points. Cow-person up!
8371 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood, CA 90069. Closest Metro line and stop: Bus Line 2 - “Sunset/Kings.”
For Cigar Aficionados
La Descarga ~ East Hollywood
We could see our spectral afterlife playing out quite beautifully in the backroom of L.A.’s best Cuban bar. It has a stirring selection of coveted aged rums, a connoisseur-curated list of really good cigars, and constant Cuban rhythms in the air for professional dancers to vibe with while entertaining everyone. You can even bring your own cigars if you want to show-off what you're smoking. We don’t even smoke. This just feels like a perfect place for kicking back in from here-to-eternity. Especially if it didn't include all these other people talking about cigars in here.
1159 N. Western Ave. Hollywood, CA 90029. Closest Metro lines and stop: Bus Lines 4 or 207 - “Western/Santa Monica.”
For Practicing Your Darts Marksmanship
Pickwick's Pub ~ Woodland Hills
We don't necessarily need our darts destinations to feel this British, but it sure helps. There's something about the scent of bangers-and-mash in the air and spilled lager on the floor that sets the right tone for hurling steel tips at foam targets after a pint. Not only does the 48-year-old Pickwick have all the right spirit (and great fish n' chips), but the separate backroom here has four dart boards, along with a cast of characters who can give you a challenge if you seek it. At the very least, they can offer you a cute accent.
21010 Ventura Blvd. Woodland Hills, CA 91364. Closest Metro lines and stop: Bus Lines 150 or 244 - “Ventura/De Soto.”
For Demanding Notoriously Slow Animals Act Like High-Performance Racers
Brennan’s Irish Pub ~ Venice
This one is between you and your conscious., we suppose. Recently, animal rights activists have enlightened us to how fucked up it is that drunk people in Venice scream at tiny turtles who are outdoors under bright lights. And yet, still one of Venice’s oldest/weirdest existing bar phenomena, turtle races at 51-year-old Irish pub Brenna's endures every Thursday night. Donatello and his bros get placed in the center of the patio, then set loose to scramble while a whole bunch of wasted post-collegiate types jeer at them to move unnaturally faster. It is fun and rowdy, despite the oppressive crowd rules (“don’t point”) that can get you taxed for actual money should you break them. And you probably will, because (duh) you're buzzed. So if this sounds like fun to you, it remains an option.
4089 Lincoln Blvd. Marina Del Rey, CA 90292. Closest Metro lines and stop: Bus Line 108 - “Admiralty/Bali” or Bus Line 33 - "Venice/Lincoln."
For Hitting Your High Notes
Cafe Brass Monkey ~ Koreatown
There are plenty of karaoke dive legends in L.A., from Santa Monica's dark, dank Gaslite to Bellflower's totally 80's New Wave, and an abundance of private karaoke rooms to be booked across town.
But none of them will be as raucous as the Brass Monkey, where you probably just ended up after hitting a few other bars in the area. And simply wound up with a mic in your hand (or if it was Sunday, being backed by a live band). And just so happened to bring down the house with your incomparable rendition of Bang a Gong/White Lines/Up Where We Belong. It’s that kind of a place. Eclectic. Fairly anarchic. Dependably overcrowded. A little insistent when it comes to the two-drink minimum. Pure KTown energy at its nocturnal finest. Watch out for musical theater students lurking among you, waiting to let their golden pipes be recognized and admired.
659 S. Mariposa Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90005. Closest Metro lines and stop: Metro D Line or Bus Lines 20, 206 or 720 - "Wilshire/Normandie Station."
For Not Getting Caught Behind the 8-Ball
The Hawk ~ Long Beach
The Hawk is probably Long Beach's most beloved dive bar. That's because it feels like it belongs just as much to the regulars as it does to the bar owner, Kyle Flavin. The drinks are stiff. The jukebox is loud. They always have a few very nice beers on tap that excite local beer nerds, plus a few seasonal cocktails that are enough for people who don't drink beer to keep coming back. It's also dark inside, and they have two well-kept pool tables in the back ready for you to decompress. They rotate DJs almost every night. One evening may be their goth night, another evening may be their cumbia night, and then they probably will also host a cumbia-goth night. Sometimes, there are food pop-ups, but if not, you can walk across the street for a few tacos al pastor from Long Beach's oldest taco truck al pastor specialist. It's a good time!
468 W Anaheim St, Long Beach, CA 90813
For Pinball Wizards
Walt’s Bar ~ Eagle Rock
Walt’s Bar in Eagle Rock feels effortlessly retro, from its circus-like neon signage to its interior, making you wonder if you’ve been zapped magically back to 1983, where the big kids with mohawks are circling to steal your quarters. Such past traumas aside, you’re here for a few things: Hot dogs, German pretzels, a solid beer list, and pinball. The bar has several old-school machines, preserved in excellent condition, most of them from an era before notable licensing agreements and IP were a thing. Meaning you'll be playing anomalies you may have never seen before, with gleefully generic names like Eight Ball Deluxe, Taxi, and Skateball, instead of those graced by Kiss or Harry Potter’s faces. In general, this is peak Valley, with locals playing vintage games in a throwback space while getting good-naturedly buzzed. As nature intends.
4680 Eagle Rock Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90041. Closest Metro line and stop: Bus Line 251 - “Eagle Rock/Westdale.”
For Nodding Your Head to a Headliner
Gold Line Bar ~ Highland Park
This all-vinyl, Japanese-inspired bar with killer highballs feels like a perpetual listening party held in heaven, with beautiful sets expected to emanate from the turntables. One of the owners is, after all, Stone’s Throw Records’ founder and acclaimed D.J. Peanut Butter Wolf, who keeps over 8,000 LPs of his own inside. That means you shouldn’t be surprised if you come by and find someone like Prince Paul, Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, or Beat Junkies/Madlib DJ J Rocc behind the wheels. Or an all-De La Soul-themed listening party. Or a record release from a beloved up-and-comer. Not too surprised, anyway. That’s what the highballs are for.
5607 N. Figueroa St. Los Angeles, CA 90042. Closest Metro lines and stop: Metro A Line - "Highland Park Station" or Bus Lines 81, 182 or 256 - “Figueroa/Avenue 57.”
