Tom Bergin's, Fairfax.

The oldest Irish bar west of the Mississippi.

Tom Bergin's opened in 1936 on Fairfax Avenue, two miles east of the original MGM lot, when the studios drank Irish whiskey at lunch and Irish coffee after. Tom Bergin himself was a Dublin emigré. He poured for Hollywood's mid-century writers, lawyers, and producers from a horseshoe bar he built by hand. The horseshoe bar is still there. The original bar back is still there. The first paper shamrock pinned to the ceiling went up in 1948.

The bar has changed ownership four times since Tom Bergin's death in 1972. Each owner has signed a written agreement with the previous one to change nothing about the room. The shamrocks have grown, by count of the regulars, to over eight thousand. Each one bears the name of a customer who has spent enough time at the bar to earn one.

Why this matters. Tom Bergin's is the rare Los Angeles bar that has resisted Hollywood. The walls have not been cleared for a Vanity Fair shoot. The horseshoe bar has not been replaced with a marble Equinox version. The Irish coffee is not foam-art and Instagrammable.

Earning your shamrock.

The shamrocks on the ceiling are not given out. You earn one by spending enough nights at Tom Bergin's that the bartenders know your drink and your name. The threshold is roughly twelve visits, though there is no formal counter. The bartender at the end of the horseshoe will at some point hand you a green paper shamrock, a marker, and a thumbtack. You write your name on the shamrock. You pin it to the ceiling.

The shamrock is yours. It will stay there as long as the bar does. Most of the eight thousand are still legible. The oldest belongs to a man named Patrick Lynch and is dated 1948. Lynch's grandson sat at the bar in 2024 and ordered an Irish coffee under his grandfather's shamrock.

This is the closest thing in Los Angeles bar culture to a guild. You do not buy your way into it. You earn it the only way the bar respects, which is showing up.

Irish coffee, then Irish coffee.

Tom Bergin's serves food, beer, and a full bar. None of it matters. You order the Irish coffee.

• The Irish coffee: twelve dollars, made to a 1936 recipe with Tullamore Dew, raw demerara sugar, fresh black coffee, and a hand-whipped cream float. It comes in a heavy footed glass mug. Do not stir.
• The follow up: a second Irish coffee, also twelve dollars. The bartenders pour them three at a time, and the second one tastes like the first.
• The bar food: a Reuben sandwich for fifteen dollars and a bowl of Irish lamb stew for sixteen. Both are old-school correct. Order the stew on a cold night.
• The cocktail option: the Bergin's Manhattan, made with Bushmills, ten dollars. Skip it. Drink the Irish coffee.
• The thing nobody knows: the bar will pour you a small Tullamore Dew neat at six dollars to chase your Irish coffee. Ask for it. Do not announce it.

Tuesday at 7pm. The off-peak honest hour.

Tom Bergin's opens at 5pm and closes at 2am every night. The peak crowd is St. Patrick's weekend, when the line goes down Fairfax for two blocks and the bartenders pour two thousand Irish coffees in twenty hours. Avoid that weekend unless you are the kind of person who likes what St. Patrick's Day in Los Angeles has become.

The honest hour is Tuesday at 7pm: the bar is half full, the booths are open, the regulars are arriving in their work clothes from the Wilshire offices. Sit at the horseshoe bar, not in the booths. The horseshoe is where the bartender pours the Irish coffees and where you can watch the technique.

The closing hour, around 1:30am, is the second great time. The booths empty, the late regulars finish their last round, the bartenders start polishing glasses. If you are the last drinker at the bar, you get a small free Tullamore Dew. This is unwritten.

What the bartender is doing, in order.

Tom Bergin's Irish coffee is made one at a time, never in batches. The bartender pre-warms a footed glass mug with hot water for thirty seconds. The water is poured out. The mug goes back on the bar. One sugar cube is added. Two ounces of Tullamore Dew are poured. Six ounces of fresh black coffee from a French press follow. The bartender stirs once with a metal spoon, dissolves the sugar, then floats hand-whipped cream through the back of the spoon so it sits on top.

The cream is unsweetened and barely whipped. The whole drink takes ninety seconds to make. The bartenders pour them three at a time during peak hours, which is the closest thing Los Angeles has to a martini-bar choreography. Watch the third one go down: that is the one made with the most muscle memory, and it is the best.

Fifty dollars per person, plan for three.

Plan for forty-five to sixty dollars per person, including tip. Two Irish coffees at twenty-four dollars, a half order of stew at eight, ten dollars for tip, two more dollars at the very end for the bartender who hands you your shamrock. A pair of friends drink for ninety to a hundred dollars before food, a hundred and forty with the kitchen.

The bar accepts cards. Tipping is twenty percent on the full bill. The horseshoe bartenders pool tips. Leave the cash on the polished wood when you leave. Do not leave a tip on the credit card slip. The pool works on cash.

The Wilshire after-work, the writers, the families.

Tom Bergin's draws from Mid-Wilshire's law and insurance offices, which empty into the bar from 5:30pm onwards. By 7pm there is a contingent of older regulars who have been coming for thirty years. The writers' room crowd from CBS Television City, two blocks south, drink here on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Saturday afternoons bring families. Tom Bergin's is one of the few dive bars on this list that still has a daytime restaurant rhythm, with families in the booths at 4pm.

You will not find a film industry crowd here, in the Aaron Sorkin sense. The film business drinks at Musso & Frank or Polo Lounge. Tom Bergin's is for the working professional class of Los Angeles, not the famous one.

How not to be the worst person at Bergin's.

• Do not photograph the shamrocks. The bar will ask you to delete it. The shamrocks are private. They have names on them.
• Do not ask for a shamrock on your first visit. You earn it. The bar will not give you one because you asked.
• Do not order the Irish coffee with vanilla syrup or alternative milk. The recipe is the recipe. The bartender will make it the right way and ignore your modification.
• Do not stir the Irish coffee. The cream is meant to float. Drink through it.
• Do not arrive on St. Patrick's weekend without a reservation. The line is two blocks long.
• Do not bring a stag party. The bar is a working professional's after-work bar, not a bachelor venue.
• Do not, under any circumstances, refer to the bar as Bergin's. The regulars say Tom Bergin's. Always.

Eat at Canter's first, drink at Bergin's, walk to Genghis.

The Mid-Wilshire dive evening: Canter's Deli on Fairfax for a corned beef on rye at 6pm, the best deli sandwich in Los Angeles since 1931. Walk three blocks south to Tom Bergin's at 7pm for two Irish coffees. End at Genghis Cohen on Fairfax for a third drink and a song from one of the singer-songwriter sets, ten o'clock weekly.

For more bars in the area, see our Los Angeles city guide, the hidden gems list, and the cocktail bars guide.

Yes. The most LA dive bar that exists.