Of all the haunts I frequented over the years Barney’s was always a favorite. The place has a long history and a great vibe. It’s the kind of place where you’d see all walks of life on any given day. Yeah, you’ll see celebrities, but they’re usually dressed like bums and keeping the lowest possible profile. There’s not exactly a VIP room in a place like Barney’s.
When the place opened in 1920 it was on the glory end of Route 66, not far from the end of the line. It was basically a shanty. In the 40s they had a lot of regular customers like Errol Flynn, Bette Davie and Clark Gable.
The greatest thing about the place is the food. They have a huge menu printed on newssheets but the chili, burgers and sandwiches are what most people come for. They have something like 40 kinds of chili and about 100 different beers and a combo like that is tough to beat.
Eventually it became a hangout for the counter-culture. The likes of Dennis Hopper and Charles Bukowski were regulars as well as a host of musicians. Location had a lot to do with it as well, live music clubs like the Troubadour just up the street. Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando could be seen sitting next to Frank Zappa or Jim Morrison. The Doors offices and Elektra records were around the corner it became a hangout.
Over the years the place never lost it’s cool.
“During the '90s, films such as The Doors and Out of Bounds featured Barney's Beanery as a location. As the altrock.com and independent film generation emerged, scriptwriters such as Quentin Tarintino would hole up in one of the multi-colored padded booths, ordering chow from the extensive, newspaper-like menu, to write such epics as Pulp Fiction. Controversy can still surround the place, as when Drew Carey formed a public protest in 1999 against California's smoking ban by inviting press and television cameras to the bar at Barney's Beanery, to watch him and his pals light up a few cigarettes.”
It’s one a the few places I sorely miss since I moved from L.A.. One of those places you could go hungover and dressed like a hobo and nobody cares. A place where could see almost anybody from the movie business with no one asking for autographs. A place where you were almost guaranteed to a couple of weirdoes talking to a guy in a business suit. I love that place.
See Shank’s post below for the background.
I enjoy different kinds of bars depending on my mood.
Category I
Dive bars. These are places where derelicts abound and anything can happen. I don’t frequent these types of establishments any longer, but when I lived in Los Angeles at least once a month a group of us would drive around and have a drink at maybe six or seven great dives. There was mystery involved and a tolerable degree of danger. In LA a lot of the dives used to be decent places, a lot of them famous at one time or another. Seedy can be fun.
Category II
The standard tavern. I tend to lean towards the standard tavern as my personal favorite. I don’t want fancy decorations and spinning lights. I want a dark cave with semi-articulate banter and frequent buy-backs from the staff. I don’t want to see people drinking fucking umbrella drinks in my tavern.
Category III
I like a small jazz club where people sit in on the bandstand and the place is totally absent of “hip, fashion conscious assholes.”
I shall not talk about “meat markets” as they have their place in society. But the absolute worst, and I mean worst possible drinking establishments, are the fucking “Cookie Cutter Bar” chain places. I cannot abide franchised bars, especially as I see them taking over across America.
How people can drink in a place with no soul is beyond me. I like some history in a bar. I’ve had cocktails in the same place where Jim Morrison got clocked on the head with a Jack Daniel’s bottle by Janis Joplin. I’ve done shots in the same place Sinatra and Errol Flynn had done the same. I’ve spilled beer in the same places as some of the founding fathers of this country.
It need not even be famous history. It just has to have soul. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Hard Rock Café. I want old beer signs on the wall advertising beer that doesn’t even exist anymore. I want a bartender that buys back after three and doesn’t have to log in with a fucking ID card with the cash register being monitored online from some corporate headquarters in Omaha. If I want food while I’m at a bar, I want the bartender to send a runner to the sandwich place down the street, not read me the fucking specials. There is no mango salsa in a real bar. And it doesn’t hurt if I can get a bet down while I’m there.
