The Baked Potato is a small jazz bar on Cahuenga Boulevard in Studio City, open since 1970 and billed as the oldest continuously operating jazz room in Los Angeles, with two live sets a night and a menu built around its namesake potato.
The club was opened in 1970 by the session keyboardist Don Randi, a member of the Wrecking Crew, and it has run nightly jazz ever since, according to its Wikipedia history and its own site. That unbroken run is what gives it the oldest-jazz-room claim. Few rooms in the city carry that kind of continuity.
The space is tiny by design. The Infatuation describes a dim, cramped room of about a hundred and sixty seats where the band plays close enough to touch, which puts the focus squarely on the music. There is no bad sightline because there is barely any room.
The booking leans into fusion and instrumental jazz, and the small stage has drawn major players over the decades alongside a deep bench of Los Angeles session musicians. The calendar runs seven nights a week. Regulars come for the players as much as the room.
Sets run twice a night, typically at 9:30pm and 11:30pm, with a cover charge and a one-item minimum that the bar enforces to keep the seats turning. Arriving for the early set is the surer way to land a good seat. The late set tends to draw the looser crowd.
The food is a bit in itself. The menu is built around giant baked potatoes in more than twenty variations, loaded enough to count as a meal, which has become as much a signature as the music. It is the rare jazz club where the kitchen is a punchline and a draw at once.
Behind the food sits a full bar, so a night here pairs the music with cocktails, beer, and wine rather than table service alone. The drinks are straightforward rather than a destination program. They are there to keep the room watered through two sets.
The location on Cahuenga, just over the hill from Hollywood, makes it an easy stop for a Valley night out or a detour after dinner in Studio City. Parking is the usual scramble on a busy night. Most regulars time their arrival to the first set.
Yelp logs hundreds of reviews, and the steady refrain is intimacy and musicianship, with the caveat that the room is small, cash-friendly, and fills fast on weekend bills. The consensus treats it as a Los Angeles institution worth the squeeze. Reservations help on a marquee night.
The founder is part of the lore. Don Randi played on records by Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, and Nancy Sinatra before opening the club, and he kept a hand in the booking for decades after. His own band long held a standing night on the calendar. That session-musician pedigree shaped who turns up on the small stage.
Who would love it: anyone who wants live jazz up close with a drink and a ridiculous potato. Who should skip it: drinkers after a spacious lounge or a quiet conversation bar, since the room is built for the band and runs tight and loud during sets.
The smart plan is the early set with a cocktail and one loaded potato to share. The Baked Potato ranks among the most enduring rooms on our live music bars in Los Angeles list and anchors our live music bars in Los Angeles guide for a night built around the music.
For more live rooms nearby, the full Los Angeles bar guide maps the rest of the city's stages, and many regulars follow a set here with a later round at The Troubadour in Hollywood.
