Giants, Patriots fans can find homes at L.A. bars

To be a football fan in Los Angeles is by necessity to root for someone other than your hometown team. So wandering tribes of sunburned Bostonians and homesick New Yorkers need to find a friendly place to party this Super Bowl weekend, when the Giants play the Patriots in a rematch of their 2008 Super Bowl.

No dog in this fight? Then any old watering hole will do. But if you want to re-create the bluster of your favorite Northeastern pigskin rivalry, a select number of spots across the Southland have you covered.

After a decade spent mostly in revelry, Patriots fans have been drinking to forget their last Super Bowl, a loss to the Giants. Sunday is a chance at redemption, and perhaps the rowdiest place for them to worship at the altar of Tom Brady is at Mid-City’s Little Bar. The Boston-inspired pub (lots of brick and wood, Sam Adams that comes practically intravenous) has become a leading Beantown sports hangout, even though owner Angelo Vacco never quite intended it that way.

“After we opened in 2005, it just happened organically,” Vacco said. “The intention was to be an East Coast tavern, and people from Boston just found it.”

The bar’s annual Super Bowl party will feature a halftime cookout, plenty of Irish-punk singalongs from Dropkick Murphys on the jukebox and beer specials. Also on offer, he hopes, is a frosty glass of revenge. “That last game was a heartbreaker,” Vacco said. “People are really excited for this one.”

In Hermosa Beach, booze and fried-fish emporium Fat Face Fenner’s Fishack has a sunnier take on Boston sports culture. The breezy, open-air and locally popular restaurant started as a casual seafood joint, but it’s been claimed by Pats devotees. “We pack it in whenever the Patriots play. Those Sundays are always the best of our season,” manager J.D. Abercrombie said.

But would beach-going and thirsty Giants fans be welcomed by Pats faithful were they to accidentally wander in?

“If they’re respectful, absolutely,” Abercrombie said, laughing. “But if not…”

Fortunately, there are also options for Giants fans to flaunt recent history. Santa Monica’s West 4th and Jane (the latter with $15 domestic pitchers and a rotating house-made barbecue menu) have strong Giants followings. But O’Brien’s in Santa Monica, a note-for-note traditional Irish pub, is the unofficial SoCal headquarters for L.A. Giants fans, with a strong coterie of New York transplants who throng the modest room on Sundays.

An online Giants meetup group claimed O’Brien’s as their redoubt more than five years ago, and ever since it’s been known across the Internet as the New York sports fan’s Westside haven. “It’s a small place, and it’s been completely full every Sunday, so I recommend coming early,” owner Willy O’Sullivan said. “These fans live and die by first downs, there’s such enthusiasm.”

O’Brien’s also nurtures a bit of a friendly rivalry with the Patriots bar Sonny McLean’s just up the street, and though O’Brien’s takes all comers, it’ll be clear which jersey is most welcome. “There’s such a throng of Giants fans in here every Sunday, it wouldn’t be too comfortable for a Patriots fan,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s really a mecca for New York sports.”

august.brown@latimes.com