WALKING DISTANCE | Hollywood: Guide #2 – Sunset Boulevard

~ By Jane E. Sussman 

Los Angeles is truly a great city for variety in activity and vibe – from Malibu to Silverlake, you can find a different energy for any mood that strikes. However, when planning a day or night out with friends, LA is a terrible city for transportation. Who’s driving? Where do we all meet? Where to park? Do I drink and ditch my car or not drink and drive home? Will I get towed or ticketed if I park overnight?

To those ends, we bring you Walking Distance: Our neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide of places to go that are all in walking distance from each other. Pick a neighborhood and stay there for the day or evening, and allow yourself to be released from the burden of driving from one spot to another in the same trip.

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WALKING DISTANCE | Hollywood: Guide #2 – Sunset Boulevard

Young and old descend upon the Hollywood portion of this Sunset Boulevard that is a bit east of it’s older cousin known as the Sunset Strip. From music to movies, from fashion to food, Sunset Blvd has it all.

>>> PARKING: Ditch the car at the garage at 6363 Sunset Blvd. – $6 for your entire stay.

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1.) DAYTIME…

• Amoeba Music – you can lose yourself in this behemoth indie music store. Used CDs can be as cheap as $4, and a diverse selection of DVDs and vinyl LPs; great for a thoughtful, inexpensive gift. Amoeba also culls great live shows – check out their site for upcoming events. They’ve hosted mainstream artists (we saw Lana del Rey here not too long ago), but it’s a great place see the unfamiliar. Want to expand your musical horizons? Check out Chicano Batman this month - described by Amoeba as “60s and early 70s Brazilian bossa nova and samba, spacey psychedlia, slow-jam soul with a pinch of surf-rock cumbia”.

• Space 15 Twenty – this collection of shops and restaurants takes up half a block; great vintage clothing, as well as a Free People and Urban Outfitters outpost, an Umami Burger, and one of the best nail salons for inventive design in the city, Kleur Nail Art Studio. There’s also a great bookstore specializing in design (architecture, landscaping, and the like) called Hennessey + Ingalls. Space 15 Twenty will host fashion, music, and food events.

• Arclight Cinemas – one of the best movie theaters in a town of terrific theaters. You can select your seats ahead of time, which makes it so that you can pick up tickets, go across the street for a Groundworks latte (arguably the best coffee in the city), and return for your movie with zero anxiety about scrambling for a good seat. Arclight has a huge selection of current movies, comfortable and ample seating (we think their seats are wider than your average theater!), with a reasonably priced bar and the occasional costume exhibition.

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2.) EVENING… 

• The Hungry Cat – one of our favorite restaurants in LA. It’s tucked away on Vine Street, a short walk from your car. Their fantastic cocktails can be bought half-priced during their daily happy hour, from noon to six; try the sloe & steady if you generally go for a dark and stormy, or the back porch sweet tea – one of our summer favorites. Many love their burgers, but we come here for all things seafood; oysters, crab legs, the peel and eat shrimp (heavenly), or the decadent tiered seafood platters. 

• Wolfslair Biergarten – a stone’s throw from The Hungry Cat, Wolfslair is the raucous tavern to Hungry Cat’s zinc bar. Their sausages (wursts) are a delicious sop to their beers (of which they have dozens) or cocktails (if you like aperol, they have one of the most inventive aperol drinks we’ve had in LA – the Drei, a mix of gin, aperol, and beer). And, there’s no passing up their deviled eggs (Old Bay seasoning and cornichons on the side – you can’t go wrong) or mussels, soaking with sausage and potato in a bath of beer broth. Mhmm.

• The Spare Room at the Roosevelt – this classic Hollywood hotel is a nighttime playland that includes the fabulous Spare Room. What might be the most expensive bowling in the city (yes, it’s $100 to reserve a lane, and yes, we know Lucky Strikes is a short walk away) is also the most fun – c’est la vie! Bowling isn’t their only game – slip into their leather booths with your date for a game of chess, or Jenga with a larger group.  If you get hungry, they have two terrific restaurants downstairs: oysters at Public, burgers at 25 Degrees.

• The Writer’s Room – a ten minute walk from your car will find you outside a dingy taco window next to Las Palmas club on Hollywood Blvd. In what used to be the backroom of Musso & Frank’s is a one of the sexiest spots in Hollywood.  This reminds of us 1Oak in New York; wooden floors, mirrors from the turn of the century, and the requisite dim, romantic lighting. If you have the funds and the inclination to impress, book the VIP daybed – enclosed in an old-fashioned elevator cage with curtains you can draw for privacy leads to a perfectly orchestrated first kiss. 

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