West Hollywood’s best dive bar? WeHo’s best sushi restaurant? Our city’s best barbershop, pet boarding place, Pilates studio? These are among the many categories we included on WEHOville’s Best Of ballot in August. The online voting turnout was great (and monitored by us geeks to make sure we weren’t being trolled — i.e. Putin didn’t vote, only you did).
We published the results in West Hollywood Magazine, our quarterly print publication, which was out last week and which you can find in news racks, restaurants and shops around the city.
Best of WeHo Night Life
Best Dive Bar
No. 1
Mother Lode
8944 Santa Monica Boulevard
West Hollywood
www.facebook.com/MotherLodeWestHollywood
(310) 659-9700
The word “mother lode” means something of great value. In West Hollywood, where good ole fashioned dive bars are scarce, Mother Lode is that.
Tucked between the very precious P.U.M.P., owned by reality TV celeb Lisa Vanderpump, and the forever-under-construction space where the restaurant Bottega Louie is opening (some day), is this bar that offers cheap drinks, a chance to play pool and some outdoor areas for smoking. The interior is, uh, rough. And dark. And very charming for those of us into that sort of venue.
And if you’re looking for an early drink, or a late one, Mother Lode is the place, with operating hours from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m.
The City that Never Sleeps has plenty of time for nightlife, and the New York queer clubs scene is one of the most prominent in the United States. After all, the Stonewall Inn — a Greenwich Village tavern that was the epicenter of the 1969 Stonewall riots — recently became the country’s first LGBT national monument.
Whether your idea of an amazing night out includes Broadway-worthy singalongs or crowded ragers, there are a number of excellent gay bars and clubs in New York City to check out. Get to know the local LGBT community at one of these eight spots — and don’t forget your dancing cowboy shoes.
For the Dancing: Industry
Grab a drink at the bar and make your way through the crowds to Industry’s dance floor in the back. The DJs at this Hell’s Kitchen club blast up-tempo, Top 40 hits and throwbacks to keep people dancing through the night.
For the Broadway Fans: Marie’s Crisis
Come to Marie’s Crisis and sing along with an amicable troupe of musical lovers regardless of sexual orientation. The skilled pianists at this low-ceilinged West Village basement bar play classics by Sondheim, Lloyd Webber, and Gershwin, while patrons harmonize. Don’t be surprised if you spot a celebrity belting out The Little Mermaid in the crowd: A-listers are no stranger here.
We’ve gained unique insights into Madrid and Tel Aviv in recent weeks. Now, we’re heading to the mighty London with this YouTube video from gay social media app Moovz.
Watch as cute local Marty Hoeft (don’t be fooled by the accent!) meets the people behind iconic LGBTI club nights and venues such as Popcorn, Fire and Ku Bar.
Drag queen, scene queen and DJ extraordinaire Jodie Harsh is just one of the Londoners to be featured in the video.
New Jersey’s seaside gambling resort is taking its show on the road, targeting partiers in Philadelphia with a mobile nightclub that will bring 300 of them back to Atlantic City to experience the resort’s nightspots. It’s also launching social media efforts to recruit fun-seekers to come to Atlantic City.
The outreach is part of the $30 million annual campaign by the Atlantic City Alliance to promote the resort as more than just a gambling center.
“Atlantic City is a lively destination all year round,” said Liza Cartmell, the group’s president. “These promotions are designed with specific social media components included in order to showcase all that there is to do here even during the coldest months. We encourage visitors to enjoy the indoor pools, spas, restaurants, shopping, nightclubs, entertainment and gambling, and share their experiences over social media with their friends.”
Puritan-style laws have long been the bane of Boston’s nightlife scene – especially since the last T subway trains leave the station at 1 a.m. on weekends. Happily, that’s all about to change. Come spring, all T routes and select bus routes will extend their late night service to 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays during a one-year pilot program. In anticipation, we rustled up five fun ideas for what to do in Boston after the clock strikes 12…
1. Get classy with jazz. Tucked in a boiler room in the Boston Center for the Arts complex, The Beehive is a self-proclaimed “boho” bar and art space that draws inspiration from the old haunts of great artists like Chagall. Jazz, soul, and R&B drift up from the basement through the two floors, without overpowering conversation, until 2 a.m. every night except for Sunday. The drinks aren’t cheap for Boston – wine starts from $9 and cocktails $12 – but there’s no cover. Closest T stop: Back Bay
2. Catch a flick. The Saturday After Midnite series at Coolidge Corner Theater transforms the Art Deco venue into a gathering place for alternative hankerings. Regular 11:59 p.m. screenings feature films that are “horrifying, weird, cult, avant-garde, tripped out, and just plain good.” Films on the February roster include “Trouble Every Day,” “My Bloody Valentine,” and “The Room.” Tickets are a reasonable $10.25 and can be pre-purchased online. Closest T stop: Coolidge Corner
London Underground has announced that in 2015 parts of the tube network will run 24-hours at the weekends. This will give nightlife in the capital a huge boost making it much easier for gay clubbers to enjoy much more of what the City has to offer.
The 24-hour running will cover the Picadilly, Victoria, Jubilee, Central and Northern Lines, which will no doubt make life so much easier for Londoners and tourists. It will also make selecting hotels much easier as travelers can now look beyond the centre city and towards upandcoming areas including Greenwich, Shoreditch, Brixton and Shepherds Bush.
The underground celebrates 150 years and while behind some of the other leading global cities London has taken a while to prepare for 24 hours.
Best new restaurant & Best date restaurant: Le Diplomate
1601 14th St., N.W.
202-332-3333
Feel like you’re dining at a restaurant in Paris without leaving the District. Authentic French food like escargot and a selection of cheeses make for a rich meal. Pair with an extensive wine list of whites and reds for the full Parisian experience. (MC)
The gay bars in Sacramento are pretty much all clustered at the corner of 20th and K Streets in what’s called Lavender Heights – ok, it’s pretty flat, but the name stuck.
On the map in the first section of this article, you’ll find this part of Midtown just below and to the left of where 21st and J intersect – the gay heart of Sacramento.
Here you’ll find Faces (at left), the oldest gay bar in the city with three dance floors. Faces has been around for years and years, and, according to the folks on Yelp, there’s a very mixed crowd here, a cover of $10-20 depending on the time, and lots of straight bachelorette parties.
There’s even a pool here, though we’re not sure who’d wanna use a pool at a gay bar. Faces has three dance floors.
There’s also Headhunters (picture at right) with both a bar and restaurant, Sunday brunch in the Cornerstone Cafe, and lesbian nights on Sundays, too.
We stopped by here the other night, and enjoyed some fun re-runs of The Big Gay Sketch Show. The bartenders here were really nice, too.
Then there’s The Depot, with music but no dance floors (though one is planned). The Depot also has pool tables and theme nights.
And there’s Badlands, adjacent and connected to The Depot, with a large dance floor and weekly events.
There’s also the Mercantile Saloon, more of a divey neighborhood bar with a reputation for strong drinks, a diverse crowd, and a lot of smokers out on the patio – it’s about a block south of the other bars in the right side of 20th.
Finally, there’s the Lounge on 20, a cool-looking lounge on Sacramento’s gayest corner that, unfortunately, is not gay owned or themed. You might still enjoy the vibe there.
If you want to sober up after a night at the bars, you’ll find a Peets Coffee at the far end of the Maars Building (where the Lounge on 20 is located, and for all those late-night needs when you find “the one”, try the G-Spot, adjacent to Badlands and Hot Rod’s restaurant and open all night.
“We pride ourselves on our diverse crowd and we welcome all,” says Scott Eustace, general manager of Tattoo. “We have no specific demographic night, basically it is come one come all.”
Tattoo Bar is an edgy, hip, rock ‘n’ roll entertainment venue with an intimate and accepting feel. Tattoo Bar beckons the rock lover to come enjoy an evening of great music, good company and excellent customer service. A diversity of musical genres makes it a true pioneer of the “Party Rock” theme in the D.C. nightlife scene.
Tattoo Bar also provides a place to release your creative side. During Halloween weekend, for example, Friday is Rehab: Triage, a sexy nurse costume contest and Saturday, a True Blood costume contest. “We are getting ready to start a retro ’80s and ’90s night,” Eustace says. “Our main promoter is gay and is he doing a great job getting the word out to everyone.”
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