Last night my friend came to Highland Park to visit little ol’ me. It’s not very often that my 310 friends come to visit me, so I decided to play host and showed her around a little bit what I love about Northeast LA. First, we stopped by York. York, in my opinion, is the best gastropub in LA. As I was still nursing a hangover from the night before, I decided to take it easy and order some Gingerale even though the various Craftsmen beer on draft from behind the bar were begging me to have a sip. Over the course of the evening, I overheard the friendly bartenders bragging to other customers about how Craftsmen brew them a special blend of beer that is only uniquely available at York. I promptly asked for a taste, upon which the bartender obliged. It was quite good.
We then walked over to the Kristi Engle Gallery on the same block. Last night happened to be “Second Saturday of Every Month,” which in NE LA-speak that means it’s NE LA Artwalk!! It was the opening reception night of John O’Brien’s exhibit. There were free booze accompanied by hipsters of various sizes and ages. The art seemed simplistic and overpriced to me. Not wanting others to catch on at what an ignoramus I was, we quickly moved on to our next destination: Verdugo Bar.
Driving past Tesco’s U.S. outlet, Fresh & Easy, on Eagle Rock Blvd, we made a turn on to Verdugo Road. As we passed by Public Storage, the electronic banner on it was unmistakenly flashing a message from Eric Garcetti about the recent gang-related shootings in the neighborhood. Oh yes, make no mistake, we had definitely arrived at Glassell Park.
The streets were quite deserted on Verdugo Road. When a late model Infiniti pulled up next to us and wouldn’t leave as we were parallel-parking, for some reason I was quite sure that that they would pull out some semi-automatic weapons and pull a drive-by on us. As it turns out, they were just some USC frat boys looking for the same drinking hole we were. Moments later, as we were about to cross the street to head to the Verdugo Bar, not one, not two, not three, but four police cars with full siren on sped down the street right when we were about to step off the curb. Another gang-related incident in the area?
Inside the bar, there was a man with red hair wearing a kilt playing bag pipes quite enthusiastically. We sat down right by the bar, upon which from that point on, the dude who sat on the other side of me proceeded to either stare at me directly or stared at my reflection at the mirror from behind the bar all night. He looked like a healthy, young, decent enough fella and did not look like he was out of his element, so I did not quite comprehend the intense stares at hungover me. He was creepy. Quite. It didn’t help either that the two plasma TV’s on the wall were playing 70’s soft porn and women were portrayed in various degrading and compromising positions. It was weird! Girls tried to pretend not to notice what’s on TV while boys were trying not to look too blatently. Meanwhile, the bag piper went on in the background. Oh yes. Good times were to be had by all, that’s for sure. As the night inched closer towards midnight, the place started to get packed. On the whole, the crowd wasn’t entirely a disappointment. They were an interesting bunch, and probably more attractive than the typical Eastside bar-hoppers. There was a DJ spinning music after the bag piper leaves. However, I did not see a jukebox.
Verdugo Bar carries a wide enough variety of beer and whiskey, and even has Dom Perignon available should the mood strikes you. I settled for some Scottish ale that I’d never heard of. It was interesting but I wasn’t sure if I’d order it again. The Verdugo Bar is open Thursday to Sunday, 8pm to 2am. There is no sign on the front, so just look for the lone lit “COCKTAILS” sign on Verdugo Road.
Verdugo Bar
3408 Verdugo Road
Los Angeles, CA 90065
Open Thursdays to Sundays, 8pm - 2am
(323) 257-3408
http://www.verdugobar.com
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