The Must - CLOSED

UPDATE: Oh, how we loved this happy hour, but it seems it may be no more. Catch the story: HERE.

118 W. 5th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90013
213-627-1162www.themustbar.com
twitter.com/themustbar

Parking: Metered street parking, or Metro baby!

Daily, 4-7 pm, beers at $2-5, wines $3-8, specialty sangria & port drinks at $4, and then an interesting little food menu priced from $3-6

To put it simply (and oh-so-cliché-ly), The Must offers a Must go-to downtown LA happy hour for several reasons.

• They have a Saturday happy hour. We could only find like three other bars that featured this downtown.


• Bar manager/bartender Casey is kinda the bomb – funny, easy to talk, good for suggestions, etc.


• They show old VHS movies on a 13-inch bedazzled television. Yeah!!


• Their beer & wine menu has some pretty great, concise descriptions like “Almond Joy Bar” for the Toasted CoCoNut PorTeR beer and “leather &orange liquer” for the Hair of the Dog “Fred” beer.


• They’ve got some delish food & drink items at swell prices.


• They serve forties of Colt 45 and Old English that come served in paperbags. Nuff said.


• Tuesday night is Titties & Wine Tuesday. Nuff said. Not really – we had to ask and it turns out it started out as a lesbian night, but now it’s anything goes!

On the chilly January Saturday that we ventured out, JG was craving a grilled cheese sandwich ($4) and tomato soup ($3) while I went for the butternut squash soup ($3) and tater tots ($4), dinner of champions (and Napoleon Dynamite). Everything was quite tasty – including our drinks. I tried the Braque Obama, a fun white-port & tonic concoction, and the blackberry sangria (both $4) while Jennie stuck with her tried & true red wine, cabarnet ($5).
As we were the first customers, the scene was pretty quiet, but already started to pick up by 5:15 pm. Host-with-the-most Casey assured us that almost every night ends up pretty lively. Checking later – a local friend, Downtown Ben, concurred, but raised the point that the restaurant’s actual dinner menu is a bit unfocused – is it tapas? Date food? Gastropub? As we’re happy hour specific, we couldn’t complain about the fun happy hour food options, but can see his point on the actual dinner menu. Also, hard liquor lovers - The Must is a wine & beer joint, which we're actually pretty fine with.
The only other drawback – as young, single ladies – is the location. Downtown is overall pretty great and interesting and weird. We love our adventures there – but we would think twice about walking around the near-Pershing Square neighborhood solo at night. Good thing we travel in pairs :)!
So grab a friend and head on over to the Must!
--JB
Rating: 4 Martinis