Redwood Still Has Downtowners Saying 'Ay-Matey'

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — September 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day and the only Downtown place to celebrate the makeshift national holiday is the ocean rebel themed Redwood Bar and Grill. The shipmates will be judging the “Best Dressed Pirate” contest and “Best Pirate Joke” will be decided by Captain Christian Frizzell.

The famous 2nd street watering hole may have a different decor these days, but it’s still quite the local favorite.

The Redwood was long the intersection between journalists from the Times and lawyers from the courts. Today the bar and grill sees shorts-wearing tourists sitting near lawyers in ties along side local residents.

Journalists still pay homage to the memory of the Redwood’s past, when it served as the unofficial lounge to celebrate Pulitizers, or as seen recently, a place to toast to those laid off.

Alice Broude, a waitress who worked the bar from 1952 to 2002, recently passed away at the age of 89 and the Times ran her obit on the same page with the first woman photojournalist to win the World Press Photo of the Year award, the last living St. Louis Brown baseball player, and a French Artist who influenced the American Pop Art Movement of the 50s and 60s.

Even if you don’t want to speak like a pirate, or just missed winning that Pulitzer, it’s good to know a Downtown tradition, with plenty of character in its own way, is thriving under ownership who understand how a pub can, uh, anchor a neighborhood.

Redwood Bar & Grill is located at 316 W. 2nd.

Upcoming events:

• Friday, September 19: Talk Like A Pirate Day
• Friday, September 26: SOS present punk/surf band, The Woolly Bandits and R/B with Tha Hitz
• Saturday, September 27: Thee Headliners, Guilty Hearts, Haunted George: “Garage rock from Voodoo Rhythm recording artist Guilty Hearts and heavy desert music from Haunted George. Portland’s Thee Headliners, a self-described rocka-country-punka-blues-asoulabilly band headlines”
• Monday, September 29: L.A. based roots country artist Mike Stinson croons to the galley
• Tuesday,September 30: Singer/songwriter Tony Gilkyson with West Coast Americana music
• Thursday, October 2: Powersolo mix of R&B soul punk