| Los Angeles has the kind of diverse nightlife scene you’d expect from a metropolis. Raucous, sedate, intimate, expansive, gritty, flashy, underground and over-crowded: L.A. has it all. If you’re going out it’s best to narrow your search somehow first.
The Sunset Strip, (on Sunset between Doheny Dr. and Crescent Heights Ave.) is famous for its nightlife and attracts tourists and young industry movers and shakers alike. If you want to experience L.A. nightlife as you’ve tried to imagine it, this is the place to start, but bring your credit card and leave your modesty at home. Among the attractions are the House of Blues, featuring many rooms of live music each night, Miyagi’s, with three levels of Japanese-themed, sake bombing craziness, the Standard Lounge in the Standard Hotel, for industry schmoozing and sipping, and the Saddle Ranch, where you can knock one back before taking a ride on the mechanical bull if sober rodeo isn’t challenge enough.
Hollywood has a slightly less glossy but equally vibrant nightlife that tends to attract hipsters with a smattering of stars rather than suits and tourists. Here you’ll find the ripped jeans and studded belts of L.A.’s haven’t-made-it-yet or too-cool-to-care set. The bars are slightly less glamorous but with more character.
While general urban rejuvenation has proven a slow process, downtown L.A. has developed a new nightlife that rivals other neighborhoods with The Golden Gopher and the glossy Standard Hotel bar leading the charge. |
| The Golden Gopher has made lemon drops from the lemons of L.A.’s deserted downtown. This lively bar, burried under the city’s skyscrapers, attracts an incredible array of revelers from hipper neighborhoods with its updated and cutting-edge jukebox, outdoor smoking porch, and unselfconscious atmosphere. Its loyal clientele includes students, hipsters and stars alike. |
| The Beauty Bar has more character than you can shake a curling iron at. This one-time salon is now a saloon for aspiring rock stars. You can sip cocktails in hair-setting seats or put the drink down to get an actual manicure. The dim lighting and DJ complete the underground feel. |
| The Standard is a hotel with rooftop bar that attracts the young downtown financiers and professionals. The open-air bar sits amid downtown’s skyscrapers and has been designed to within an inch of its life. The entire bar is red and white, large pod-shaped waterbeds sit around a rooftop pool, hip molded plastic furniture and plush couches are arranged for lounging, and movies are projected onto... |
| Starshoes is “a cocktail lounge and vintage shoe salon” run by the same management as Beauty Bar but with a more obscure footwear theme. There is usually a live DJ and the small dance floor in the back often drags patrons away from shoe gazing for some booty shaking. Projected nature films and cartoons provide entertaining, if befuddling, visual stimulation. |
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