Los Angeles Cocktail Bar The Varnish Is Closing After 15 Years

The Los Angeles cocktail scene was shaken not too long ago when Eric Alperin, co-owner and co-founder of The Varnish, introduced the approaching closure of his groundbreaking speakeasy. 

Launched in 2009 by Alperin, Cedd Moses, and the late Sasha Petraske, The Varnish was an extension of Petraske’s imaginative and prescient for his groundbreaking New York Metropolis bar, Milk & Honey. It didn’t take lengthy for Los Angeles to purchase into the bar’s imaginative and prescient, which turned a mainstay of the town’s consuming tradition. 

Hidden in a former storage room behind one in every of L.A.’s oldest eating places, Cole’s French Dip, The Varnish centered on traditional cocktails with intent, goal, and impeccable method.

Over its 15 years in operation, The Varnish grew to be one of the beloved and influential bars within the metropolis, putting twenty second within the World’s 50 Finest Bars in 2011, successful a Tales of the Cocktail Spirited award for Finest American Bar in 2012, and snagging a James Beard Award semifinalist nod in 2017. The Varnish was additionally frequented by the late L.A. meals author Jonathan Gold and earned a go to from Anthony Bourdain in 2012 for his Journey Channel present, The Layover.

After a decade and a half, The Varnish is lastly closing its doorways, marking the top of an period. So what occurred, and what does it imply for the bar panorama in Los Angeles, and past?

Elevating the bar

Earlier than The Varnish, there was a small however rising cocktail scene in Los Angeles that was nonetheless behind different main cities in some ways. 

“L.A. was the [misfit] of the cocktail world. No one took it critically,” says Leandro DiMonriva, who spent a decade bartending at Cole’s and frequenting The Varnish earlier than turning into a full-time educator and cocktail educator at The Educated Barfly.

It wasn’t the primary craft cocktail bar in Los Angeles, however The Varnish marked a sea change within the metropolis’s bar and hospitality group.

“The opening of The Varnish was just about making a declaration, like, ‘That is what we imagine,’ , a philosophical method to cocktails. It clearly resonated in a variety of alternative ways,” says former Varnish bartender Alex Day, now co-owner of Demise & Co. and a companion with Gin & Luck.

The Varnish’s dedication to its core values set a excessive normal for bars in Los Angeles.

 “It was one place particularly that had no downside saying ‘We’re gonna maintain to our requirements,’” says Gordon Bellaver, Varnish alumnus and companion at Penny Pound Ice. “It wasn’t about, ‘Oh, have a look at how nice The Varnish is,’” he says. “It was extra like, ‘Wow, The Varnish has some sturdy values and a really sturdy perspective, and I can try this too,’ ?”

The magic of the bar was an amalgamation of things, together with consideration to element and real thoughtfulness from those that labored there. 

“I might inform you in regards to the hand-cut ice and the contemporary juices and the meticulous consideration to measuring and cocktail temperature and garnish placement and even our playlists, however what made The Varnish particular was how a lot all of us individually cared about bringing it to life each single night time,” says former Varnish bartender and hospitality marketing consultant Devon Tarby.

The tiny 987-square-foot bar offered a welcome escape for visitors. Low candlelight, dwell jazz musicians, and the fixed clanking of ice shaking in opposition to tin created a timeless, comforting ambiance that invited intimate dialog. 

“You walked in and supposed to have a cocktail or two, and then you definately blink, and you’ve got been there for 5 hours,” says Day. “You have made new mates, and there was identical to an unbelievable sense of group handled inside that house.”

DiMonriva agrees. “There was a variety of camaraderie. It was simply laborious to explain, it was like strolling right into a group the place everyone is simply on the identical wavelength,” he says. “I bought to take in all of the data. It’s majorly answerable for what I do now with The Educated Barfly.”

Day, Tarby, and lots of the bartenders who reduce their tooth behind the stick at The Varnish have gone on to additional success within the hospitality trade and past. 

A altering scene

Though The Varnish feels untouched by time, it’s nonetheless subjected to the fabric realities of the trendy day.

“There is a sort of overriding narrative proper now that all of us bought by way of the pandemic, and every thing’s fantastic, and it is simply not the fact,” says Day. “Town of Los Angeles modified essentially and downtown modified enormously.” 

Working a bar is just not straightforward work, and the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t make issues simpler. The amount of restaurant and bar closures throughout Los Angeles in 2024 thus far is staggering and well-documented. The prices concerned with operating a bar proceed to rise and Angelenos nonetheless have not returned to their pre-pandemic nightlife habits.

“The closure speaks broadly to the housing disaster and to the acute enhance in value of dwelling we’re seeing in Los Angeles and in lots of different American cities,” says Tarby. “It feels unjust that The Varnish and so many different small companies are falling sufferer to those systemic points properly exterior their management.”

Downtown L.A., and particularly the world surrounding Cole’s and The Varnish, was hit significantly laborious by the pandemic. 

“Downtown had just a little sketch, however nothing that wasn’t thrilling within the metropolis that invented noir,” says Alperin. “When the pandemic hit, I do know folks moved out of downtown. They only did not need to be there, and I do not know what number of have moved again.”

Former bar supervisor Samuel Houston was tasked with steering the ship as soon as The Varnish reopened after lockdowns. “There are many days the place I felt like I used to be a flotation system, just like the bar was simply treading water,” he says. “I felt like the town wanted it, although. For no matter purpose.”

The precise factor that made The Varnish so particular made it particularly tough for the bar to pivot through the pandemic. To cease utilizing contemporary juices and clear ice or to start pre-batching cocktails for faster service is totally antithetical to the ethos laid down by the bar’s founders. 

“Ardour initiatives, or issues that take a variety of labor and are an enormous labor of affection, are sadly very simply reduce when the fats will get trimmed,” says Day. “ , it is only a tough scenario. However on the similar time, I believe it was at all times a type of locations that you just thought could be round without end due to its consistency, due to its notoriety and recognition.”

Final name

With the closing of The Varnish, lots of those that loved the bar or labored there are feeling nostalgic. One pervasive sentiment was a way of gratitude for having been a part of one thing they felt was particular. 

“It is so laborious for people like us to not wrap up a chunk of who we’re and our id and have it superimposed onto this factor, this concept that we created,” says Day. “And when it fails, it simply doesn’t really feel actual.”

Houston provides that usually, “bars open and shut so shortly we barely discover or have little emotion once they shutter. [But] The Varnish was a bar that fought again and invested on this metropolis, fueled by the bartenders and servers invested in it. It feels just like the bar is able to go be with Sasha.”

In the long run, The Varnish goes out by itself phrases. After surviving the worst of the pandemic, the folks behind the bar nonetheless refused to compromise their values. Due to this, the group constructed across the bar will at all times keep in mind it because the bar’s founders supposed.

“Something actually good and worthwhile has beginnings, middles, and ends. , all stunning issues have an ephemeral high quality to them,” says Alperin. “The Varnish is perhaps this little flash level that helped the remainder of the town do what it wanted to do. It is okay that The Varnish is shifting on.”