Frolic Room

Frolic Room has held the slot beside the Pantages Theatre at 6245 Hollywood Blvd since 1934, with speakeasy years before that. Howard Hughes owned both the bar and the theater from 1949 to 1954, per Smithsonian Magazine, and the neon sign from that era still runs.

Time Out calls it a bar not for dilettantes but drinkers, a neighborhood hangout in a neighborhood without many of them. Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and Charles Bukowski all drank here; Bukowski's photo still hangs over the bar, per LA TACO.

Who would hate it? Anyone who says mixology out loud. There is no cocktail program, and that is the point.

The east wall carries the Hirschfeld style mural installed in 1963: Einstein, Monroe, the Marx Brothers, and W.C. Fields in a single caricature parade, restored in 2012. Hirschfeld's hidden NINA appears three times in it, per the Hollywood Partnership.

Order a well whiskey and Coke at $7 or a $6 bottled beer; Scoundrel's Field Guide calls the pours a needed dose of affordability and notably strong. The move is a shot and a beer before or after a Pantages curtain.

Cards work, despite the cash only rumors. Tip in cash anyway.

Old timers hold the rail while Pantages crowds surge around curtain times and tourists wander in off the Walk of Fame. Time Out's read: a straightforward, friendly little room in which to get loaded with others of a similar mindset.

What regulars say:

• The staff were very friendly, the drinks were strong, and the prices cheap, per Scoundrel's Field Guide.
• Best Dive Bar in Hollywood recurs across Tripadvisor review titles.
• LA TACO counts it among the few confirmed bars where Bukowski actually drank in LA.
• The lore runs deep: accounts cite it as one of the last reported sightings of Elizabeth Short in 1947, per Smithsonian Magazine.

Who it is for:

• Pre show and post show Pantages drinkers
• Dive bar completists working through the canon
• Avoid if you want craft anything; Harvard & Stone runs the program version up the street

The most defensible dive in Hollywood, where the neon, the mural, and the prices still agree with each other. Bring a twenty; leave change.

Getting there: 6245 Hollywood Blvd at Argyle, one block from the Hollywood and Vine B Line station, directly beside the Pantages.

Timing: 11am to 2am daily; peaks around Pantages curtain times and late night.

Cost: $6 bottled beers, $7 well drinks; cards accepted.