Melgard Public House

7505 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323-651-1650 (I think?!)
twitter.com/MelgardNews

Parking: Metered Street Parking along Melrose and side streets, bring your quarters!

Monday-Friday (I think)*, 3-7 pm, Free Cheese Pizza with drink purchase

Running this website/blog, I know that it doesn’t cost hardly anything to have a website. Having a phone with voicemail, well, that’s just par for the course. As an individual, I like having the luxury of both – it makes it easier to communicate with readers, friends, etc. So, I can only imagine that a new up & coming bar would find it easier to relay information to their supporters/clients/etc. through a website (even one as simple as a free blog) and/or answering machine.

Melgard Public House is not the first bar we’ve encountered to not have a website and a phone that rings 68 times before you tire of waiting and hang up, but it certainly annoyed me on the night I wanted to check the bar out for their Trivia (which I knew about from happening upon a Trivia night in progress a few weeks before). I wasn’t sure if Meglard would be hosting Trivia that night as it was Game 2 of the NBA Finals. As it turns out, we checked out the bar for happy hour at 6 pm, but 7 pm Trivia had been pushed until 8 pm.

I know I sound a little like Bitchy Headquarters and I really don’t mean to because I actually really liked the bartenders at Melgard; they were all funny and charming and had a good rapport with the patrons. But I was already slightly annoyed at the lack of information available on their non-website and unanswered calls. They do have a twitter page, but it’s not updated frequently enough to let people know of deals. Plus, there’s still lots of people are just becoming familiar with twitter, including us so it’s not the best idea to rely on twitter only.

And their happy hour isn’t that great either. The good news is you get a free cheese pizza between 3 and 7 pm, and even better, it’s quite tasty. But that’s it. No drink specials – all beers (and there were a gazillion to choose from) went for $6, including my pint of Wyder’s Pear Cider and Tracy’s bottle of Corona Light. No other food specials – though we did each order a $5 garden salad (okay deal, nice portion size) to go with the pizza. But really, I don’t think it would hurt the bar to offer a handful of beer selections at $3/4 per pint during happy hour and to add a couple more food items to a happy hour menu. I’d sacrifice a free pizza in the name of Satan for five or so $4/5 food menu options.

From what I could tell, all food and drink orders have to be placed at the bar, which is strange because Melgard is set up more like a large restaurant with a bar, inside & outside seating aplenty, rather than a bar with food. Again, cool bartending staff makes this okay, but it seems to make more sense to have servers taking orders as well. Maybe there are servers, I just didn’t see any that night…

Long story short, I really do want to check out Trivia sometime – love that there’s a Trivia night offered so close to home. And Melgard seems like a great place to watch a game (NBA Finals or World Cup!). I’d also like to check out more of Melgard’s food menu – they have a Nutella pizza that sounds very, very, very tasty. But I don’t think I’d make Melgard a regular happy hour spot – unless they offered some better drink deals and maybe a couple more food options. And had a working phone.

Love,
Bitch Headquarters (JB)

*I think happy hour is Monday – Friday, I forgot to get the info from the bar and of course, the phone just rings when I call :).

Rating: 2 Martinis

Checkers Downtown

535 Grand Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90071
213.891.0519checkersdowntown.com
twitter.com/CheckersDT

Parking: $6 Valet with validation
Every Thursday, 4-8pm, Four cocktails & Four plates for $4 each

Sometimes, you get what your pay for. In the case of Checkers Downtown Four Happy Hour, when I paid nothing for food & drink, I got nothing for service.

I had wanted to check out Checkers Downtown happy hour for some time now. Perhaps, the fact that it is a one-week occurrence on Thursday nights, I thought it would be that much more special. Every Thursday, from 4-8pm, Checkers offers 4 cocktails & 4 appetizers at $4 each. The Menu changes weekly, which also adds to the intrigue.

I met downtown happy hour partner, The Minty, at Checkers, but not before waiting for the valet for nearly 10 minutes. I was actually pleasantly surprised to find out that they offer valet, which I guess is pretty natural since it is attached to a Hilton hotel. However, when I pulled up, there was no valet out front by the sign. I waited outside for a while when I noticed that other people were waiting as well. I finally followed suit of another driver and went to the front desk with my keys. The staff acted surprised that we were left waiting for a MIA valet, but quickly got us tickets and took our keys.

Once inside, I settled in for a drink with The Minty and her PR pal who happens to do PR for Checkers. We waited and waited and waited before someone gave me a menu, let alone took my drink order. I was pretty surprised considering I was with someone who does work for the bar. While I waited for someone to take my order, staff members came over twice to remove empty glasses and spray down the tables. They seemed to be way more serious about cleaning tables then taking orders because when spraying down the tables, I managed to get sprayed with mysterious blue cleaner – twice!!

Finally, we were able to order drinks – my first, their second – and I gotta be honest, the staff didn’t seem too happy about serving us. I don’t know if they don’t like bloggers or just don’t like happy hour. A couple of other bloggers had joined us so maybe they felt they didn't stand a chance? The only one who seemed friendly was the bar manager, but he was busy with other things, so it was clear that he didn’t notice who had drinks and who did not. The crazy part is the bar is not that big or that crowded. Unless, the staff was busy making drinks for room service, I have no idea why there was such a hold up. We were also sitting thisclose to the bar so it’s not as if you could miss us.

For this particular Happy Hour, the liquor of the night was gin. I had the Bronx cocktail,which was made of gin, sweet and dry vermouth, and a splash of orange juice. It was pretty damn tasty, just a shame that it took so long to receive. I sampled the Gin Gin too, a cocktail with gin & Ginger beer, which tasted like a refreshing mojitio. For food, I ordered the spinach salad with cherries, pine nuts, & feta cheese. The salad was pretty tasty

along with other dishes I spotted. The dishes were of a just right size - not too small, not too big. However, if looking to fill up at happy hour, you may want to order more than one dish.

It was a good thing that I wasn’t looking to order anything else because the staff sure wasn’t in a hurry to serve us. Before leaving, I asked for parking validation and a server told me that he had to ask for “authorization” even though the website and the valet will tell you that parking is $6 with validation. We decided to move onto the art walk and check out new food trucks, which I can promise were all friendlier than the group at Checkers.

Thanks to PR Pal Eddie for the drink & food! However, I gotta wonder if this is how Checkers treats a guest of the company, how do regular customers stand a chance?

-JG
Rating: 2 Martinis

Spitz

371 East 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 613-0101www.eatatspitz.com
twitter.com/eatatspitz

Parking: Metered street parking or parking garage across 2nd Street – $4 after 4 pm

Monday – Friday: 3-7 pm & 10 pm-midnight, Sat & Sun: all day!; Select beers - $3 pints, $5 mugs (25 oz), $12 pitchers; $4 sangrias by the glass; $1 pita & hummus, $2 Cinnamon-Sugar Pita Strips with Vanilla Gelato dipper, and good food meal deals

Los Angeles may be many things – loud, traffic-jammed, earthquake prone, etc – but baby, this city is never boring. There are so many unexplored boroughs that, even after 8 years, I’m always finding something new. And bless The Happy Hour Tour for helping take me to new and different areas to find the best deals. Take Little Tokyo, for example; I headed down for Spitz’ all-weekend happy hour and look forward to heading back sometime to take in more of the sites.

But this review is about Spitz, a modern-ish Greek restaurant with a pretty sweet happy hour deal; from Monday to Friday, you’ve got your choice of happy hour between 3-7 pm or from 10 pm – 12 am, or come by on the weekend, and you can get happy hour all day/night! The space is great – you order from the bar and then take a seat at the outside patio or inside sun-lit area (nice blend of inside & outside light), where your food is delivered. The inside & outside areas aren’t large, but they accommodated the afternoon crowd just fine.



And the food & drink… Fab! Spitz offers three beers on their happy hour special (Oskar Blues Little Yellow Pils, Stone IPA, Eagle Rock Brewery Brown Ale) – $3 pints, $5 25-oz mugs, and $12 pitchers! And they also offer three sangrias (Cardamom Cinnespiced Red Sangria (YUM), Peach Basil White Sangria, and Mint & Apple Rose Sangria) at $4/glass. The only technically happy hour food items are real steals: $1 pita and hummus and $2 Cinnamon-Sugar Pita Strips with Vanilla Gelato dipper.




But the rest of their food deals are excellent too – Ad-bot & I ordered Greek sandwich wraps (he had the doner wrap with lamb & beef, which he assured me was excellent ($9.49 with side salad & soft-drink), and I had the falafel wrap (salty, but good) for $6.29) and the $1 pita & hummus. My favorite part of the meal was our shared order of Street Cart Fries (French fries covered in a Greek mix of green peppers, tomatoes, black olives, feta cheese, tzatziki sauce, and red onions) for $5.49, also available on Sweet Potato Fries for $5.99. Spitz also offers gelato, but Ad-bot & I had another spot to scope out – Scoops (brown-bread and Guiness chocolate ice cream – oh my!) on Heliotrope, north of Melrose.

Spitz’ crowd seemed young and cool; it would be interesting to see this place on a Thursday- Saturday night when they have a deejay spinning from 7:30 pm – 12 am! Would love to stop by Spitz again on an “Experience LA” kinda trip down to Little Tokyo!

Note: Special shout-out to Groupon, which offered a great deal at Spitz – $14 worth of food for $7!! You gotta love the Groupon deals, I highly recommend subscribing to their daily e-mails.

-- JB

Rating: 4.5 Martinis

Venice Beach Pub Hunt

As a review I was just working on says, you can say many things about Los Angeles, but child, we will hit you upside the head if you ever call it boring :). This weekend offers yet another fun (drinking!) activity - the Out of the Box Events "Venice Beach Pub Hunt."

From their website:

June 12th, 1pm $45 per person ($25 for designated driver)

Tthe OOTBE Venice Beach Pub Hunt will be held on June 12th from 1-4:30. Your team will hunt through Venice Beach, scouring the boardwalk for the answers to our challenging clues, riddles and puzzles. Throughout the 3 hour hunt, teams will make pit stops at several cool Venice Bars to learn fascinating facts about spirits, pub crawl history and of course partake in a few of those drinks you’ll be learning about!

What you get:

*Up to 6 people per team
*Cool color coordinated backpacks for every team
*4 drinks included (website says 3, but we've been assured it's 4 :)
*Prizes to the winning team
*Exact starting point revealed upon registration
*Must be 21 or over and show valid picture i.d.

And dear readers, because we love you just so much, enter the promo code 'friend' and get $5 off your ticket.

Thank you for being a 'friend!'

Cheers!
Jennie & Jessica

Postino Winecafe

3939 E. Campbell Ave.
Phoenix, AZ 85018
602-852-3939
www.postinowinecafe.com
twitter.com/PostinoWineCafe

Parking: It's not LA - there's free-parking everywhere!!
(Look ma, free parking!)

Daily, 11 am - 5 pm, $5 select glasses of wine (and what a selection?!), $5 beer pitchers (not like huge beer pitchers :)

It’s always fun trying out a happy hour in a new city – we know that happy hour is happy hour anywhere, from New Zealand to Memphis. So, when I set out for Phoenix (in spite of the boycott (lo siento!)) to spend some quality time with family, my one goal for the low-key weekend was to hit up a local happy hour.
And finding the spot is half the fun. My beer maestro brother swears by Zipps, where he likely spent over half his birthright (J/Kzzz, we don’t have birthrights) during his several years in Scottsdale, but it was too far from my great-tia’s house in Phoenix. My uncle had heard good things about Postino’s closer to her and Yelp confirmed it was a solid happy hour bet – coming up 2nd in the search queue.
So great-aunt & grandmother in tow, I headed for Postino (quaintly named as the location formerly housed a post office!) for their Sunday afternoon reggae and white sangria. I first noted the full parking lot, which I came to find out later – has discouraged some other relatives from visiting Postino. But for an LA-kid, the fact that free nearby lots and street parking was available – well, ain’t that a novel concept?
My second note was that we did have to add our names to a waiting list; happy hour is not at the bar, per se, it’s to be ordered from your seats. So we bopped around the adjacent La Grande Orange shop to bide our time – it also seemed like a good time with good food (albeit loud & busy). Thankfully, our wait was short and we were sat outside, which was fine in the 95 degree temperature – almost everywhere seems to have nice shading and misters.

Now, going to happy hour with new peeps is always a trip – seeing how they rate a restaurant. For example (and note #3), my grandmother liked the heaviness of their silverware, but wasn’t impressed by the wiping of the tables and chairs with the same rag. Both review points rarely cross my mind, so it was good to hear her thoughts.




My gang of three forwent the $5 wine and beer deals and instead opted for the Sunday special - $5 white wine sangria. I quite enjoyed mine, but my HH partners thought it a bit sour and added splenda. There are no food deals on the happy hour menu, but the prices are not too wallet-depleting. I got the ½ Italian Market Salad (greens tossed with roasted beets, goat cheese, bacon (no bacon for me!) and walnuts topped with crisped root vegetables in herb vinaigrette) and ½ vegetarian sandwich (grilled Asparagus, roasted artichokes, red onion, vine ripe tomatoes, goat cheese, and house-made pesto) for $9.50 and a cup of the Brocolli-cheddar soup for $2.50. I didn’t leave any room for the bruschetta, but it sounded great – you pick four options of toppings (including brie & apples with fig spread; smoked salmon or salami with pesto; white bean with chopped tomato; ricotta with dates & pistachios, and more) for $12.75.

The crowd was pretty homogenous – youngish professionals on family time listening to the one-man reggae band. I think it’d be a great spot to catch up with a girlfriend over the weekend. And I’d love to see what kind of crowd the early evening/evening brings. To me, it seems weeknights would be optimal for a date night.

I also wonder about the 11-5 happy hour, which is great for the weekend, but I wonder who can partake on weekdays. Any Phoenicians out there have thoughts on the typical Phoenix workday/primo happy hour timing?

--JB

Rating: 3.5 Martinis




This has nothing to do with the review, but my dog-cousin is the cutest, littlest thing I ever did see (and she lives in Phoenix :).

Big Foot West

10939 Venice Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310.287.2200www.bigfootlodge.com
www.twitter.com/BigFootWest

Parking: $5 Valet; Street Parking
Daily, 5-9pm, Ahhh-mazing selections of drinks for $5

I’ve wanted to check out Big Foot Lodge in Los Feliz for sometime now. Not only do I want to expand my east side adventures, but I also fantasize about running into Kiefer Sutherland during one of his wild nights out. I’ve had friends that not only had sightings but encounters, so I feel my time is due. But since I tend to spend more time on the west side, I guess it should come to no surprise to myself that I hit up their new, brother bar, Big Foot West first.

This bar may now be my new Woods away from home. Not only are they similar in décor, but the drinks are tall and strong, too! Unfortunately, I didn’t have any eye candy in bartenders since they were all female and I don’t swing that way… not that there’s anything wrong with that.

There’s no food served at Big Foot West, but they certainly make up for that in their drinks. Worth noting, they often team up with food trucks for those with a case of midnight munchies. For happy hour, all drinks are $5 – and not just well drinks. They offer a pretty impressive list of specialty cocktails. I had the Absolut Beri Blue, with ginger ale, and sweet & sour. It was so good that I was set on drinks for a while. My friend had the Absolut Mandras, a martini cocktail with orange juice and cranberry juice. We both agreed that our drinks were pretty strong, but definitely in a good way.

If you’re a single lady, this may be a great spot to chat up a guy. There were pairs of guys, groups of guys, and maybe a date or two. I’m not sure if I ever saw another group of ladies so the numbers are in your favor! Aside from noticing the guy-to-girl ratio, I didn’t pay too much attention to the guys because I was in full-on girl talk mode, talking about guys in our lives, of course.

I will return to this happy hour without a doubt!
-JG
Rating: 4 Martinis

Gyenari

9540 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
310.838.3131www.gyenari.com
www.twitter.com/GyenariLA

Parking: Various Parking Garages – 1st 2 hours free, $1 per hour after that
Daily, 3-7:30pm, $2 Hite Draft, $3 Blue Moon drafts, Well Drinks & House Wine, $5 beers – drafts & bottles, & select food from $4 – 7

After a bum happy hour at Kay ‘n Dave's, it was good to know that there was another daily happy hour within walking distance. Many people had recommended I check out this happy hour at Gyenari, and for some reason I was expecting a run of the mill, strip mall place. However, I was immediately taken in by Gyenari’s sleek interior. The walls were made of slick wood, the tables were black, & near the hostess stand was a frosted white wall with shadows of wine bottles.

Since I was pretty full from the earlier happier hour, we grabbed seats at the bar to try out the cocktails only. I was really excited to try one of the specialty cocktails pictured on the happy hour menu, but then I realized that they weren’t on special. Since $9 drinks were listed on the happy hour menu, I certainly hope they don’t go up in price during regular hours. The real happy hour drinks are listed towards the bottom of the menu, with no photos, therefore making me less excited to order and somewhat confused by the menu. I quickly got over it though and ordered a $3 house white wine.

I guess it’s a good thing that I was pretty full on food because the bartender never returned to ask if we wanted to order food, or another drink for that matter. This time, I did pay attention to time lapsed, and a full 20 minutes had gone by from the time my glass was empty. The restaurant was busy, but not crazy busy. Plus, I can forgive a rush when a bartender gives the “I’ll be right with you” courtesy look. This bartender seemed to no longer be working the bar, but the restaurant section as she only made drinks for the servers only. Perhaps, she had been reassigned, but some notice would have been nice.
Luckily, Andres stepped in to save the day! Not only did he take our 2nd drink order, but also he was charismatic and didn’t seem at all overwhelmed with the hustle & bustle of happy hour. Now, that we had the attention of a server, we gave into the aroma and ended up splitting an order of kimchee rice with pork belly. The rice was really good, although it could have used a little more pork belly. I was kinda disappointed that I didn’t flip flop the order of my happy hour visits and eat most of my dinner here.

All in all, the happy hour was all right. I suspect that the dinner service is where it’s at since most dishes looked amazing. Plus, people in the dining room were priority with the drinks.
-JG
Rating: 3 Martinis

Mass Happy Hour on Sunset Strip - Wednesday Nights!

Hola readers! Welcome back from the long weekend. We hope you had a great one and were able to stay safe, cool, and slightly buzzed! No new review today (JG's on set & JB's getting her bearings from a weekend trip to Phoenix), but we are excited to share some fun Sunset Strip news. Forgive our laziness - this is taken straight from the Sunset Strip website:

The Sunset Strip is celebrating the summer with a Mass Happy Hour every Wednesday night! Kicking off June 2, select businesses are offering extended happy hours from 5-8 p.m. as well as a specially priced “The Sunset Strip” cocktail for $4.

Participating retailers are also extending their hours to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays and offering ‘tax break shopping’ from 5-8 p.m. Enjoy poolside cocktails, delicious appetizers, and stress-free shopping on The Strip all summer long. What are you waiting for?

PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS/BARS

BLT Steak www.bltsteak.com
Borracho Cantina http://www.borrachocantina.com/
Cabo Cantina www.thecabocantina.com
The Den www.thedenofhollywood.com
Dukes www.dukeswesthollywood.com
Isla Cantina www.islacantina.com
Saddle Ranch www.srrestaurants.com
The Standard Hollywood www.standardhotels.com
Sunset Trocadero - 8280 Sunset Blvd.
Talesai www.talesai.com

PARTICIPATING RETAILERS

Extended hours to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays with “tax break” shopping from 5-8 p.m. (9.75% discount).

Code C www.codecusa.com
Chez Bop www.chezbop.com
LIVE! On Sunset www.liveonsunset.com
Nicole - 8663 Sunset Boulevard
The Comedy Store will offer $3 PBR in their downstairs bar and free entrance on Wednesdays when you print or show their “Endless Summer Mass Happy Hour” coupon on your cell phone.