WTF is... Barney's?
Because, in LA, it sure as hell isn't a department store.
Last month, Taylor Swift was spotted at Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood. I nearly spat out my whole milk latte when I saw the 'news.' Barney's is a total dive bar. The beer is flat and there is a burger on the menu called 'Juicy Lucy.' It's the sort of place you end up in on a night out when you're either too inebriated to make a sound decision or there is nowhere else open. Or both. I was once so drunk leaving Barney's, I made my Uber driver take me home via the McDonald's drive-thru and tipped him a cheeseburger and an iced tea.
Anyway, Gen-Z now think Barney's is, like, the coolest thing ever, and the place is overrun with TikTokers and my husband, Chris, is now one of the oldest people in there. Because that's the other thing I can tell you about Barney's. It's my husband's favourite place in the world.
"Barney’s is my happy place and somewhere I’ve spent many hours," he says. That is nothing to be proud of, I remind him. "It's somewhere that welcomes you and invites you to stay for the long-haul. Friends in town? Barneys. Work drinks? Barneys. They like arcade basketball, right? Barneys."
This is precisely why we held Chris' 40th there, in the summer of 2022. We invited a big bunch of people and everybody showed up. This was either because we were in that funny post-Covid era where going out was still a huge novelty, or because Chris is very well liked. I surmise it had nothing to do with the venue.
Barney's was, however, the perfect place for the sort of low-key event Chris wanted, and where one of his (rather famous and well known) artists could come along and go unnoticed. Yes, even when she surprised Chris with the most enormous triple berry cake from Sweet Lady Jane and we all sang, ‘Happy Birthday’. For context, I had, prior to the party, presented my husband with four cupcakes. The fact that - when tasked later that night with bringing home the remainder of the enormous cake in an Uber - it slipped out my hands and on to the road, is entirely coincidental, I hasten to add.
But back to Barney's. A quick deep dive into its history (via this interesting LA Times article from October 2023) reveals that Barney’s, which first opened in West Hollywood in 1927, has long attracted celebrity punters. There is a cancelled check that Marilyn Monroe wrote for an order of chilli in a frame on the wall. It was the last place Janis Joplin was seen before she died. Oh, and Jim Morrison is said to have peed on the bar. Which, IMHO, seems quite fitting.
"It's cool because it's uncool," Chris' mate Mike (who also works in the music industry and frequents Barney's) tells me. "It's like an English pub but the most American bar at the same time."
That's really selling it. Keep going...
"They put on trivia nights and there are TVs in every corner of the room, playing different sports at the same time."
That sounds like actual hell.
"But there's no atmosphere for sports because people are watching different things - one person is watching baseball, another is watching NFL..."
What are they drinking?
"The Stella they serve is flat. I don't know where they get it from but it's the worst pint I've ever had anywhere in the world."
Presumably the food menu makes up for it?
"The menu is on a newspaper - you open it and it's huge and overwhelming. There is nothing healthy on it, it's all burgers and nachos and chilli cheese fries."
What else do we need to know?
"The waiting staff. Whether they're male or female, it's not that they're super attractive but there is something alluring and you always fall a little bit in love with them.
“It's probably because they're damaged LA souls who came here to be singers or actors and now they're working in Barney's Beanery serving Philly Cheese Steaks and flat pints of beer."
Oh, so like a tortured poet's department. How very Gen-Z.