Golden Gopher

417 W. 8th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90014
213.614.8001
www.goldengopherbar.com

Parking: Street parking a’plenty! Too scared to walk around in search of parking lots.
All Night on Sundays & Mondays; 5-8pm on Thursdays & Fridays, $2 off beer, wine, & cocktails

I’m a sucker for bars that have photo booths. If a bar has a photo booth, I almost don’t need to hear anything else… except if there’s a happy hour, of course. That’s how I ended up at Golden Gopher.
Photo booth aside, Golden Gopher almost didn’t stand a chance. JB & I had covered two bars in the 213 Downtown LA group, and those experiences were just all right. No happy hour details listed inside at one place, outdated happy hour details listed on the website of another. This time, I was sure to call the bar in advance, but I was unsuccessful at getting anyone on the phone. I went anyway. For the photo booth.

Out of the three 213 bars I have now covered, Golden Gopher is the best looking. It’s very modern, but still has the feel of a place that could be your neighborhood bar. There’s golden gopher lamps, video game tabletops, good views of downtown – I loved it. It also has the best looking bartender of the three. I would have loved to get a photo of Sonny, our bartender, but I didn’t want to push my paparazzi skills. Although there were some nice sights, the place was pretty damn empty for the all night, Monday night happy hour. Luckily, Sonny and the jukebox provided us with some entertainment.

The good news is all of the happy hour information on the website is correct, as well as placed inside the bar. Sonny informed us that the only information that was not correct actually saved us an extra dollar on beer & wine. However, I still could have used an extra dollar or two off of my $7 happy hour cabernet. Maybe that’s why the bar was so empty.

And that photo booth? It does have a great happy hour price – 2 photo strips for $5! It also is the fastest printing photo booth that I ever experienced.
-JG
Rating: 3.5 Martinis