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How can you regularly fill that seat at the bar?
Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanHow can you regularly fill that seat at the bar?

How to become a regular at your favorite LA bar

Written by
Adam Reese
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You wanna go where everyone knows your name, right? When you were a kid, the idea of being a “regular” at a bar was glamorous... something you aspired to become. Bars were places where Cliff Clavin and Norm Peterson could be surrounded by their friends and truly speak their mind.

Fast-forward twenty years: you haven’t sent or received a Christmas card in decades, you’re in credit card debt up to your ears and you can no longer call your grey hair “premature." You’re a “social drinker” because your social life IS drinking, and you feel a natural comfort at your neighborhood bar. But how exactly does one obtain the lofty status of regular at that neighborhood bar? 

You really, really enjoy drinking. 

I’m not suggesting that you slowly descend into a “Leaving Lost Vegas” full-blown alcoholic. However, if you want to see your Ghost of Drinking Yet To Come, be sure to stop by Lost & Found in Mar Vista. I had a good two-hour conversation with a self-described alcoholic (complete with weathered surf t-shirt, board shorts and puka shell necklace) during my last visit. Just know that in this city, we’ll call you a “functioning drunk.”

You’re a sports fan.  

College or pro...it doesn’t matter. You’re guaranteed instant camaraderie with several dozen other frothing-at-the-mouth fans. You don’t even have to show up in officially-licensed merchandise...just shout and clap a lot. Every team is represented somewhere in the City of Angels—even NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars. You just need to know where to go

You live within stumbling distance.

Why drive to a bar when you can walk? LA is definitely the land of the automobile, with a burgeoning cycling movement close behind. Our Midnight Ridazz might be highly skilled, two-wheeled road warriors, but if you’re dumb enough to try biking at night while drunk, you’ll more than likely be a quadriplegic by the third block. Walking is the way to go, and you’re never more than a few blocks away from a decent watering hole in LA. Even Palms residents no longer fear being stuck in a Venice Boulevard dead zone thanks to Bigfoot West and Blind Barber.

You’re entrenched in your neighborhood.

Some “Angelenos,” if interrogated properly, will only admit to visiting Hollywood and Downtown LA for events like ArtWalk or the Feast of San Gennaro. If you’re fortunate enough to be an actual resident of one of these neighborhoods, you’ll know it’s like pulling teeth to get your buddies to come out on an average Tuesday night. Let these so-called “friends” continue to fear the alleged lack of parking, the omnipresent LAPD helicopters, the late night donut shop-orbiting tranny hookers and the occasional assault-and-battery in progress. You can take comfort in your self-imposed exile and seek out a place of refuge with other like-minded locals. Hollywood has its Burgundy Room, and Downtown has its Bar 107.

Be your neighborhood ballerbut on a smaller scale.

We already have enough Silicon Beach brats double-parking their Teslas. We’re overstocked on WeHo Sunset Strip overly-fragranced douches in sunglasses. We’re in desperate need of local ballers—people revered by others within a quarter-mile radius, but completely unknown to those beyond. Your local tavern’s doorman should at least recognize your face; better still if he knows you by name. Make yourself known, but not notorious. Seek fame, not infamy. Tip well on your first drink. Not strong enough? Order a double for your next. Don’t like the music? Swipe your card in the Internet-enabled jukebox. Start the conversation with a compliment, not a complaint. LA bartenders appreciate solutions, not problems. 

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