Today is the birthday of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. It is celebrated, in some places, as Johnny Appleseed Day. Other locales celebrated it on 11 March. I'm not sure how the March date was chosen. It's exactly one week before Johnny Appleseed died -- which seems like an odd thing the celebrate … Continue reading Swinging Doors — Los Angeles’s Cider Scene on Johnny Appleseed Day
Tag: Swinging Doors
Swinging Doors — Los Angeles Mead and Meaderies
Happy Mead Day! Yes, 6 August is Mead Day -- not that I expect anyone to know that. Nor did I know it until I searched up "mead day" a couple of weeks ago and discovered that it was already coming up. Why this date? I don't know. There are certainly other days more associated … Continue reading Swinging Doors — Los Angeles Mead and Meaderies
Swinging Doors — Los Angeles’s Early Houses
Say what you will about Los Angeles but it's unlikely that anyone has ever described it in earnest as a "city that never sleeps." It is not, in other words, Barcelona, New York City, New Orleans, or Las Vegas. There are 24-hour businesses in Los Angeles, of course, mostly restaurants. When I was younger, I … Continue reading Swinging Doors — Los Angeles’s Early Houses
Swinging Doors — Los Angeles’s Oldest Bars
INTRODUCTION In 2018, I made a map of Los Angeles's oldest restaurants and wrote a bit about them. It proved relatively easy because there was lots already written on the subject. When I started writing about Los Angeles's oldest bars, it proved much more difficult. Not only could I find no serious effort to draw … Continue reading Swinging Doors — Los Angeles’s Oldest Bars
Swinging Doors — Los Angeles Sake History & Culture
Los Angeles has a long and rich history of alcoholic beverage production and consumption. Wine was introduced by the Spanish as an integral aspect of their mission project. Los Angeles was, in fact, historically the largest wine-producing region in the US. Beer arrived later, its popularity largely dependent on immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe … Continue reading Swinging Doors — Los Angeles Sake History & Culture
Swinging Doors — The Stardust Club
The other night I went to the Stardust Club in Downey to see San Francisco Bay Area band, Starry Eyed Cadet. Before leaving home, I was fairly sure that I'd been to the Stardust before previously to see Zip Code play there. As I got closer, heading down Firestone Boulevard, I was certain that this was … Continue reading Swinging Doors — The Stardust Club
Swinging Doors — Club Tee Gee
Club Tee Gee is a long-standing bar in the Northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Atwater Village. After the owner died in 2016, there were fears that it might be shuttered. After a sale and renovation, it reopened on 14 November 2018 -- and so in the interest of research, I headed over for a few … Continue reading Swinging Doors — Club Tee Gee
Swinging Doors — Los Angeles Train Pub Crawl
The train-enabled bar crawl is surely as old as the train itself. The first public transit line in Los Angeles was the Spring and West 6th Street Railroad, a railway founded in 1874 which served Downtown. Surely some bright 19th Century Angeleno had the brilliant idea of using the horse-drawn railcars to carry them from saloon … Continue reading Swinging Doors — Los Angeles Train Pub Crawl
Swinging Doors — The Chain Pubs of Los Angeles
In 2015, whilst vacationing in England, I ducked into the first pub I encountered in the tiny village of Crowmarsh Gifford. It was the first real English pub that I'd ever been in and whereas I had been led to believe that all pubs were cozy, warm, and woozily welcoming places, this one had an ambiance … Continue reading Swinging Doors — The Chain Pubs of Los Angeles
Swinging Doors — A Gold Line Beer Crawl
In Los Angeles, I regularly find myself so spoiled for choice that it sometimes leaves me distressed; but really, there are surely worse problems than being presented with too many great possibilities with how to spend one’s time. On Sunday there was a nine kilometer hike in the San Gabriel Mountains which culminated with a … Continue reading Swinging Doors — A Gold Line Beer Crawl
Eric Brightwell 