LOS ANGELES HISTORY OF BARS

LOS ANGELES HISTORY OF BARS, RESTAURANTS, HOTELS AND BUILDINGS (SAN FRANCISCO, SAN DIEGO, LAS VEGAS, PHOENIX, DALLAS/FORT WORTH, BALTIMORE AND WASHINGTON D.C. AS WELL)

"OLD SCHOOL LOS ANGELES"

History of Los Angeles Metropolitan historic restaurants, historic bars, historic buildings and historic hotels from the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s with a description of their history (movie palaces, motel signs, and remnants of Rt. 66 as well) - places like the Brown Derby Restaurant, Musso and Frank's, the Formosa Cafe, Miceli's Italian Restaurant and Canter's Deli - this website concentrates on the history of those bastions of a bygone era (note I have ulterior motives for over using the words history and historic - the things ya gotta do in the modern world!). Get ready to enter history and take a trip back in time. By clicking on the hyperlinks at the bottom of the page, you will find charts of restaurants, bars, hotels, motels, movie palaces and buildings in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and beyond (I like to call it Las Sangeles - Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Francisco and towns in between - Baltimore and D.C. restaurant history included too, although not quite suburbs of LA!) which were built before 1970, still exist (except for my extinct restaurant page) and still have elements of the original interior design (or at least look like they are original). There are a lot of excellent websites that concentrate on the history of specific restaurants like the Brown Derby Restaurant. However, I’m not sure there are any that concentrate solely on the history of pre-70s bars and restaurants in general with original, not overly remodeled interiors (yeah - even us married guys can be into interior design!). These are the places the present generation calls "old school". Using this guide you can still spend an entire week in California and Las Vegas at restaurants, bars, movies, shopping etc. and in effect not leave the 1940s (you could have spent the exact same week back then - well, maybe a little less traffic!). You can also explore the historic mysteries of Los Angeles' dark side: Did Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia) live in the Alto Nido apartments? Where did Sharon Tate have her last meal? Does Hollywoodland still exist? Where did Raymond Chandler hang out? Is the Queen Mary haunted? Where was the last restaurant James Dean ate at before his crash. These and other historic questions and more are answered by exploring this site.

NOTE: THIS SITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION - for the time being go to my very similar site www.latimemachines.com

[You will find scores of historic restaurants that still exist with pictures and histories - like the Prince Restaurant picture here - by visiting the restaurant pages for various cities. The Prince was the location of the restaurant scene in the movie "Chinatown".]

What qualifies as "Old School"? Well, on this site I'm not referring to Oxford or Cambridge Universities. For me a true Old School place is a restaurant, hotel, bar or other building interior where you can sit and feel like you’ve returned to the past (alternatively I also call such places "Time Machines"). It’s sort of like when you hear an old tune that brings you back to an earlier time in your life (although the best time machines for me bring me to a time before I was born). Sitting in these places, one has the illusion of going back in history to a time gone by when life had a slower pace, people cared about quality and integrity, a person's "word" was good as gold and life’s pleasures were more simple and innocent.

[The incomparable Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles - you just have to check out their indoor pool - straight out of the "Great Gatsby" and featured in the movie "Bugsy"]

Los Angeles (Las Sangeles in general) is full of wonderful old school places of this nature, although they are vanishing at an alarming rate. Our history is disappearing. In the thirty years I’ve lived in or near Southern California, we’ve lost the Hollywood Brown Derby Restaurant, Nickodell’s restaurant, Chasen’s Restaurant, Vickman’s restaurant, C.C. Brown’s, most of the movie palaces (as places to see movies at least) and the list goes on and on. In even earlier times, the destruction of our pop culture history in Los Angeles was constant. For example, there are no longer any traces of the original (first) Café Trocadero and Mocambo on the Sunset Strip. Surprisingly, however, there are still a wealth of old school bars and restaurants left (and many I have yet to discover). The more interest we can collectively generate in these historic bars and restaurants (and patronize), the more likely the rate of destruction will at least slow.

[Union Station - art deco sublime and featured in one of my favorite movies - Blade Runner. The last of the great train stations build in America ]

Before exploring these bars and restaurants by clicking on any of the hyperlink topics below, it’s important to read the WARNINGS PAGE, so that you know exactly what you're getting into! I make no representations whatsoever regarding the safety of visiting any place (especially bars) on this site! [Note: On most pages (except this one) you can click on the thumbnail (small) pictures to expand them. You can also use the magnifying (plus) icon to expand for great detail. Then hit the back arrow to return to the main page. There are a lot of pictures, so some pages may be slow to load for dial-up visitors.

A fan of the site who goes by "Buck Shot" has been nice enough to create a Google map for most of the bars and restaurants in Los Angeles on this site - click here for the map.

RATINGS - For better or worse, I thought it might be nice to institute a "time machine" rating for each place I mention. I give them from one to five "T's" (for "Time Machine" effect) based on my purely subjective guess as to how much of the historic, original interior design remains (except for those historic recreations that really work, like the "El Capitan" movie palace). The number of T's has nothing to do with the quality of the food or drinks, or even how nice the ambiance is. It just reflects how well preserved the original interior is. A place with a one or even "no" T rating may be a perfectly wonderful restaurant or bar, but it's almost totally remodeled . With that, we're off!!

[La Dolce Vita in Beverly Hills - while no one can beat Musso's history and interior, this may be the best all around "time machine" considering the food, service, friendliness, history, romantic setting, background music and "star sightings".]

LEGAL BLURB: All writing, photos and pictures, to the best of my knowledge are in the public domain or are "fair use". If I am mistaken in this belief, please contact me and the content will be corrected or removed immediately. None of the businesses or organizations or links mentioned in this website are affiliated with me or the website. None of the businesses or organizations or links mentioned in this website in any way sponsor this website or any of the information listed here. All text, files, articles, images, pictures on this website (if they are my creations) are copyrighted (3-30-2005 # TXu 1-236-517 and TXu 1-317-834 9-11-06) and are strictly prohibited to be used for any purpose without prior express written authorization from the author. All Rights Reserved.