Lotus Lounge
1135 N. Vermont Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
map

There are times when this city can still surprise and delight. It’s the feeling one gets in a slightly grimy neighborhood, which you have passed through hundreds of times, when you wander in a slightly grimy doorway, which you have never before noticed, and find a dive bar that warmly welcomes you and serves up the most inexpensive pitcher of beer seen in years. It is harder and harder to uncover a new dive never before seen on the tour, but this week we will bring such a bar into the fold.

This week sets us down smack in the middle of town, on axis with the great dive bar heaven of San Pedro and somewhere between the neighborhoods we often call "east" and "west." The bar is just a block from a stop on our often neglected subway system between downtown and the valley. It is just a stones throw away from the 24 hour Mexican restaurant known affectionately as ‘The Gran’. A pitcher of beer will set you back just 12 dollars. There is a dart board, a pool table and over sized 80’s macro-brew posters all over the walls. If you do decide to drive (rarely has a dive bar destination been so accessible to public transportation) you will find copious amounts of street parking and a small lot in the back. Stay long enough and you might find yourself in a crackpot conversation about the economic future of the United States of America with a nice old-timer. With all these factors taken into account, I am beginning to think the Lotus Lounge could be a lynch-pin of the entire Los Angeles dive bar universe.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM an gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you).

Carpe Drink’em,

Alex, Damien, & Travis, WDBT Co-Czars

H.M.S. Bounty
3357 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90010

It was the 28th of April, 1789, 30 nautical miles from Tofoa, when Fletcher Christian pulled William Bligh from his chambers and at the point of a bayonet proclaimed, “I am in hell, sir! I am in hell!” After six months of paradise on Tahiti as part of their mission to acquire breadfruit plants, Christian and his fellow mutineers could not cope with a return to sea and the tyrannical leadership of Lieutenant and Commander Bligh.

Casting Bligh and those loyal to him off into the dinghy (which Bligh masterfully navigated to Timor with nothing more than a sextant and a pocket watch), Christian returned to Tahiti to acquire native women before eventually burning the ship at Pitcairn Island. Fletcher Christian and most of his crew were eventually murdered, but not before siring children with their Tahitian women. The descendants of these children populate Pitcairn to this day, and in 2004, Steve Christian and six other men were convicted of sex-related offenses involving under-age girls.

The events of the mutiny have been retold in numerous films and books, and referenced in such classics as “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”, in which the crew return to Earth to face a court martial, and Commander Leonard McCoy dubs their captured Klingon Bird-Of-Prey, “The HMS Bounty.”

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM an gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you).

Carpe Drink’em,

Alex, Damien, & Travis, WDBT Co-Czars

“The code of the schoolyard, Marge! The rules that teach a boy to be a man. Let’s see. Don’t tattle. Always make fun of those different from you. Never say anything, unless you’re sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do.” - Homer

Frank N Hanks
518 S Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90020

This week the world dive bar tour takes us deep into the city we know and love as Los Angeles — in the heart of Koreatown near the intersection of Western and 5th Streets. Over 70 years old by some reckonings, Frank N Hanks is a veritable United Nations of libation seekers with drinkers from all walks of life and ethnic and racial histories. The Los Feliz Hipster will sit near the Gray-Haired Retiree for a cold beer from a can. The Reformed Latino Gang Member will share a story with the Son of Korean Immigrants over an old fashioned. And this week, we will add our own stories to the great narrative that this bar has witnessed.

Take care on your approach and stay alert, as blink and you might miss it. Once you make your way inside, squeezing by the jukebox and a few of the aforementioned mix crowding the door, be sure to show your ID to Snow (the kind Asian lady behind the bar), order a stiff drink for less than a five spot, and start to take a look around. It will be a quick exploration, as the bar is no bigger than a double wide trailer, more than four times as long as it is wide. After the bar and few tables, the remaining room is taken up nicely by one pool table and an electronic dart board. These environs all make for spirited and cozy conversation, making you certain to walk away with a new friend, if just for that night. Be sure to bring cash as this bar doesn’t take plastic, and be prepared to leave with high spirits.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM an gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you).

Carpe Drink’em,

Alex, Damien, & Travis, WDBT Co-Czars

"More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together"

Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations

H.M.S. Bounty
3357 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90010

It was the 28th of April, 1789, 30 nautical miles from Tofoa, when Fletcher Christian pulled William Bligh from his chambers and at the point of a bayonet proclaimed, "I am in hell, sir! I am in hell!" After six months of paradise on Tahiti as part of their mission to acquire breadfruit plants, Christian and his fellow mutineers could not cope with a return to sea and the tyrannical leadership of Lieutenant and Commander Bligh.

Casting Bligh and those loyal to him off into the dinghy (which Bligh masterfully navigated to Timor with nothing more than a sextant and a pocket watch), Christian returned to Tahiti to acquire native women before eventually burning the ship at Pitcairn Island. Fletcher Christian and most of his crew were eventually murdered, but not before siring children with their Tahitian women. The descendants of these children populate Pitcairn to this day, and in 2004, Steve Christian and six other men were convicted of sex-related offenses involving under-age girls.

The events of the mutiny have been retold in numerous films and books, and referenced in such classics as "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home", in which the crew return to Earth to face a court martial, and Commander Leonard McCoy dubs their captured Klingon Bird-Of-Prey, "The HMS Bounty".

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM an gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you).

Carpe Drink’em,

Alex, Damien, & Travis, WDBT Co-Czars

"The Royal Navy is not a humorous institution, sir, and insubordination is no laughing matter."

- Anthony Hopkins, "The Bounty"