Where To Play Your Own Game
David Markland
[Flickr]
Team "The New Staff Infection" wins a gift certificate to cover a few rounds while playing trivia on Tuesday night at Caseys.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — All drink and no play may be fun for some people, but for those who want to work off some of those beer carbs, or prove that drinking makes you smarter, there are a number of drinking facilities offering additional entertainments.
King Trivia out of Woodland Hills provides trivia nights for teams or individuals to compete against each other for rounds of drinks, gift certificates, or sweet glory.Weiland Underground (505 S. Flower) hosts on Thursdays, and Casey’s (613 S. Grand) on Mondays. Both games begin at 6pm. Big Wangs (801 S. Grand) has Buzztime trivia upon request, allowing players to compete for the highest score in the room or even across the country.
Casey’s sets the standard for bars using more than alcohol to bring its clientelle out of their shells. In addition to the trivia night, a pool table, darts, ping pong and foosball are all available during open hours. On Thursdays, the Original Drink & Draw Social Club meets at 8pm, where anyone can come and create some art, and a ping pong tournament is held the second Tuesday of each month.
Interesting factoid: The Green Apple Market at Wall and 5th was once the site of the pool hall seen in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video. While Downtown lacks a proper pool hall today, some of the places you can still hit the 8 ball are at tables at Las Perlas (107 E 6th), Seven Grand (515 W 7th), and Tony’s Saloon (2017 E 7th), which also offers darts and ping pong, with a ping pong tournament the last Tuesday of each month.
Surpringly, we couldn't find a single air hockey table at a bar Downtown, but one shuffleboard table did show up in our search at Villains Tavern (1356 Palmetto St).
For your old school video game fix, bring your quarters to Golden Gopher (417 W 8th) to play Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede, or Asteroids. If the selection isn’t wide enough, and you can hold off on being at an actual bar for a bit, the Sassony Arcade (724 S. Broadway) or Little Tokyo’s Japan Arcade (333 S Alameda St) have dozens of mostly working vintage and new games to choose from.
Search For J Street on November 11, 2010, at 02:38PM – #1
ESPN Zone is a big miss. Not only do they have air hockey, they also have DDR, which is an awesome way to work off those drinks.
Jamie DeFrisco on November 11, 2010, at 02:49PM – #2
There's also pool tables at 5 Star Bar. I believe there's a pool table, pinball machines and a megatouch machine at the Down & Out. There's also a couple of arcade machines in Bar 107(Root Beer Tapper, Pac-Man, Galaga). The machines at the Golden Gopher seem to have issues(not accepting money, turned off, controls not working). I wish they would fix them, unless they have recently. There's also megatouch machines in some other bars in the area.
You also failed to mention anything in LA Live. There's bowling and drinks at Lucky Strike. There's an arcade upstairs at ESPN Zone (although honestly I have never been up there to see what's up there, but I assume they have Air Hockey.) Although these places are a little more pricey, they still deserve to be mentioned.
Guest on November 11, 2010, at 03:07PM – #3
Love the photo...the dude at the right has an awesome view!
Michael Robleto on November 11, 2010, at 03:23PM – #4
In addition:
Pool tables an also be found at: Golden Gopher (new!) Royal Clayton's
Also:
Ping Pong table at Tonys Big Wangs has beer pong tables
Myles Nye (@MylesNye) on November 11, 2010, at 03:56PM – #5
But where oh where are the pinball games downtown?
Guest on November 12, 2010, at 08:03PM – #6
Down and Out has pinball. They also frisk the fuck out of you which you can turn into a fun game.
Guest on November 13, 2010, at 07:49PM – #7
Nice photo! What a good-looking bunch!