Los Angeles Nightlife: Blogger Hits Legendary Studio City Bars

 L.A. Haunts With A Hollywood Celebrities Connection

Apparently, I did not give the place enough of a chance.

Instead, I treated it like the average-looking girl in a bar who was flirting with me in favor of the much hotter one on the other side of the room.  Shrugged off the advances of a sure thing to take a shot at the class of the field.

When I first moved to Los Angeles, Studio City was winking at me. Acting coquettish with its historic Hollywood tradition.

I worked there, but I shunned it at night for the coastline. I wound up living – and partying – in Hermosa Beach.

And while there is no doubt I made the right decision, I have come to realize that I was a bit too quick to brush off my original work city.

I was invited to check out the renovated bar and hotel at Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City and when I mentioned the event to Johnny Cosmo, who hosts a radio show that talks about legendary LA haunts, he erupted like a volcano. “There’s so many cool places near there,” he said. “Be sure you go to Casa Vega, the Village Inn…”

Suddenly I was excited about Studio City!

And let me say it was a memorable experience.  Sportsmen’s Lodge is cool; the hotel is like stepping back into 50’s and 60’s Hollywood, and the lobby bar is hip and cool.

Casa Vega was dead – even though it was Taco Tuesday! – and the food and margaritas are less than what you can get in many places in the South Bay. But the menu is like reading a movie script; it’s a book several pages thick and eventually you just say “give me a chicken burrito.” It’s dark but not too dark, the bartenders are lively and even this beach guy felt comfortable the moment I walked into the place.

PubClub.com photographer, Jack Fleming, who hangs out in this part of L.A., told me Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt were Casa Vega regulars when they were together. There’s an acting studio next door and several Hollywood people frequent the place. I’m not a star gazer, but that’s still pretty cool.

But the real Hollywood people are not celebrities. They are the people who have lived in the area for years and see and know everything. People like Stephen Phenow. He was at the press event, a photographer for the weekly Valley newspaper. That may not seem like a big deal on the surface but here, the surface is like the tip of an iceberg; there’s always more than what’s on the surface.

Stephen was once high up at CNN and he spoke with great passion about the local bars just down the street from Sportsmen’s: Casa Vega, the Village Inn and the Fox and Hounds.

Jack and I also met someone else at the bar, a sexy Brazilian in her mid-20’s with a low-cut blouse and a high-rise personality. She seemed fairly normal – she said she designes websites – but nothing in LA/Hollywood is normal.

Upon brief interrogation from Jack and myself, we discovered she travels almost at will to New York and Miami, spends time on private jets and has 500K followers on her Instragram account. While only following 4 (she has yet to add PubClub, making it 5!). That’s way too out of whack not to peak one’s curiosity.

Is she an adult film star, the president’s daughter, dating a soccer player? All of the above, perhaps. Hard to say. A Google search of her name revealed that she once threw a brick through her boyfriend’s apartment. Good thing we split for Casa Vega!

We did not make it to the Village Inn or the Fox and Hounds, I am somewhat disappointed to report. But we did go into a cool English pub called the King’s Head, a mere two block walk from Sportsmen’s Lodge.

So I’m about write something that I never thought possible when I worked in Studio City: I’m looking forward to going back there, to experience more of this legendary old-Hollywood part of Los Angeles. Oh, and Sportsmen’s Lodge has weekend pool parties.

Cheers!