The Blue Boar Pub

615 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 465-1750
www.blueboarpub.com

Parking: Metered Street Parking & Various Lots
Days: Monday-Friday
Times: 5-7pm
Drink Deals: $5 Well drinks & $2 off draft beers (Bass, Bud Light, & Blackthorn Cider)
Food Deals: N/A, but food is relatively inexpensive

True Hollywood Confession #8,221,040: I had never been to Capitol City Grille on Cahuenga. So when they shut down, I neither shed nary a tear nor poured any malt beverage on its grave. Instead, I welcomed its new next door neighbor that its closing made way for: the Blue Boar, a neat and narrow British pub with a very nice $3 cider beer from 5-7pm.

I’ve also never been across the pond (that pond anyway), but Anglophile Kitty Packard assures me that Blue Boar really is like a neighborhood pub in London. I guess the pubs there are actually located in neighborhoods and therefore close down around 10pm for noise restriction purposes, making way for the swinging discotheques and other clubs. No thanks on the latter, but I certainly love the idea of a neighborhood bar actually located in a residential area (The Woods strip mall setting doesn’t count).

If the Blue Boar is a typical British pub, call up Virgin Atlantic because I’m there! The deals are good, the food is fine, it was busy without being packed, and the bartenders that we met, Teddy and Chau (picked up from Capitol City’s firesale), were jolly good blokes. The setting provided a great backdrop for Kitty and I to get caught up from our summer trips (hers to NY and mine to TN/IL).

Draft Beer Selections

For Happy Hour, The Blue Boar is currently offering $5 well drinks and $2 off draft brews from 5-7pm. Very excited by their Blackthorn draft beer for only $3, I ended up having 2. KP started with a Bass and ended with a $5 Whiskey & Coke. The prices are right on for these drinks, but I do hope the bar considers adding a rotating weekly cocktail special from their way-fun British-themed cocktail list like “Strawberry Fields,” “The Beckham,” and “Henry VIII” – which are all priced around $10.

Curry & Chips ($5)

For food, The Blue Boar doesn’t offer any Happy Hour deals, but their prices aren’t bad for snacks or dinner. Like its somewhat adjacent neighbor, the Cat & Fiddle – the Blue Boar serves up British fare like Fish & Chips (at the budget-friendlier price of $10.50), Bangers and Mash ($9), and Scotch Eggs ($6.50). KP and I split an order of the Curry & Chips at the swell (though non-Happy Hour) price of $5. The fries were very good and definitely sharing size, but the curry – well it wasn’t really a curry per se, more like a chutney (say that with a British accent and you’ll impress all the ladies!). Still, pretty tasty for $5.

Although The Blue Boar isn’t quite close enough to be my neighborhood bar, I am very excited about the good drink deals and neat setting (brick walls!) that really make it my kind of bar. My kind of out-of-the-way-neighborhood British pub!

Don't you want to go where everybody knows your name?

--JB

Rating: 4 Martinis