The Week the Heat Broke the Ice Supply, and Every Kitchen on Vine Started Making Runs
Restaurants can plan for a hot week. What they cannot plan for is the third thing that fails — and this time it was the one commodity nobody has a backup for.
Business
Commerce on the Boulevard and beyond.
Sixty Years On, a Sunset Guitar Shop Is Really a Repair Bench With a Store Attached
Grubb & Sons has sold guitars near Sunset and Gardner since 1966, but the line that forms each afternoon is for the workbench in back, not the wall out front.
The Boulevard's Last Newsstand Sells Papers, Postcards and a Little Advice
Every other sidewalk newsstand on Hollywood Boulevard is gone. The one that remains stays open on lottery tickets, cold water and a regular clientele who come as much to talk.
The Copper Kettle Turns 95, and It Still Won't Laminate the Menu
Ninety-five years on the same Franklin Avenue corner, the diner keeps its menu on paper, its coffee bottomless, and its opinions about both.
A 1962 Tiki Bar Reopens, With the Founder's Grandson Behind the Bamboo
Shuttered for six years, a Hollywood tiki lounge is pouring again under the grandson of the man who built it, who kept the carvings and threw out the fog machine.
Up on the Roofs: Hollywood's Bars Keep Climbing, and the Wages Don't Follow
A wave of rooftop bars and restaurants above Hollywood Boulevard has added tables, views and jobs — most of them the kind that depend on a good night and a generous crowd.
Boulevard Retail Vacancy Edges Down for the First Time Since 2022
A three-point drop in empty storefronts along Hollywood Boulevard is too small to call a recovery, the people who track it say, and too overdue to ignore.
The Tailor Who Dresses Award Season and Quinceañeras, Often the Same Week
A third-generation shop off Western Avenue takes in a rented tuxedo and a fifteenth-birthday gown with the same pins and the same deadline, and treats neither as more important.
On the West Edge, a Row of Vintage Shops Where the Costume Designers Come First
A cluster of resale and vintage-clothing stores has taken hold near the neighborhood's western boundary, and the film-industry buyers who arrive at opening keep the racks turning.
The Film Bookshop That Outlived the Chains Is Expanding Next Door
Larkin & Sons has sold books about movies from the same narrow Vine Street storefront since 1971; this summer it is finally taking the vacancy beside it.
