Last Call for Downtown L.A. Watering Hole

The iron gate was pulled tight across the front of the legendary Redwood 2nd Street Saloon on Monday at lunchtime, but about a dozen regulars slipped in through the side door anyway.

They parked themselves in the torn leather chairs that line the long parquet bar and took a last look at the crushed-velvet banquettes that for more than six decades had equally embraced politicians, gangsters, police officers, judges, government workers and journalists who toiled in the downtown L.A. office buildings nearby.

“Really, this place is like home,” said Rosalyn Layton, tears welling in her eyes. The Caltrans worker joined City Hall workers Pete Banks and Terry Gray, all of them longtime clients, to pay last respects to one of downtown’s classic taverns.

Nearly anyone who ever tilted a glass at the Redwood had heard late last week that it was done for. But many hoped for an eleventh-hour reprieve that would save the place they compared to a real-life version of the fictional television bar Cheers.

But it wasn’t to be. The Redwood’s last 5-year lease expired in February, and the landlord of the 13-story building at 316 W. 2nd St. refused to give owners Ho and In Park the 10-year lease they said would allow them to invest in improvements.

“I’ve lost over $100,000, maybe $200,000,” said Ho Park, who served his regulars free champagne and drinks while packing liquor bottles into crates. “But still, I don’t complain. It’s over.”

Indeed, the Redwood’s experience shows that, even amid the boom that has brought expensive new apartments and lofts downtown, the rising tide does not lift all boats. Some of the amenities that residents are clamoring for -- restaurants, bars and supermarkets -- still can struggle to make a profit.

The Redwood’s business had been dwindling over the years as many of the restaurant’s older patrons who worked at nearby government and private businesses were laid off, retired or relocated.

“At lunchtime, there used to be 150 people, but it’s now dead,” Ho Park said. “Three years ago, if there were under 100, I would sweat. Now if there’s 100, I would be happy and make money.”

At night, there was little foot traffic past the restaurant, equally isolated from the booming east side of downtown and the performing-arts venues of Bunker Hill.

The Redwood stubbornly clung to its past. Younger workers and downtown loft-owners gravitated toward restaurants with better wine and ambience, and away from the dark-paneled and windowless rooms of the Redwood, which had only one wine label -- Sutter Home -- and no redwood on its walls.

Landlord Avi Florentine of Broadway Civic Center said the tavern’s “B” and “C” health ratings didn’t help matters -- a factor that contributed to his refusal to issue a long-term lease. In addition, the restaurant challenged the skills of the Parks, Korean immigrants who had no experience running a tavern.

Ho Park said he had found a buyer for the bar, but Broadway Civic refused to transfer his lease, citing a legal technicality -- Park had given only 57 days’ notice of the proposed sale, rather than the 60 days required.

Florentine said the prospective buyer, also a Korean immigrant, had little experience running a bar, a situation he did not want to repeat.

Without a lease, Park said, no buyer would be interested in purchasing the restaurant.

Meanwhile, Park, 65, purchased a Steak Escape restaurant in the food court at Northridge Fashion Center a few weeks ago, which he said generates more revenue per customer than the Redwood.

With confidence that the new business would help him recover financially, Park decided he would close the Redwood, laying off his 10 employees.

Word of the last rites spread fast. For the first time in perhaps years, the joint was jumping Friday night, as longtime friends and co-workers swapped tales and raised one last toast.

“This is the only place downtown that’s a neighborhood bar, like Cheers,” Eddie Talamantes, 70, the longtime daytime bartender, said as he prepared for the Friday crowd. “Everybody knows everybody, and everybody gets along with everybody, whether they’re professional or nonprofessional. We have state, city, county, courts and lawyers -- people from all walks of life, they come together, and they’re all friends.”

“It’s like a good pot of stew,” agreed Michael Greaves, 53, a county worker who spent his day off there Friday. “The world should get along like this.”

Dr. Stanford Furer, a retired internist in his 80s who now works for the state Medi-Cal program a few blocks away, ate a last Cobb salad there for lunch Friday and reflected on the void that would be left.

“I hate to see landmark places -- my favorite places -- close. It seems we lose so much when we lose the old, and old restaurants in particular develop a character. They are an important part of our culture.”

Alice Broude, 86, the Redwood’s beloved waitress for 51 years, came out of retirement to bid farewell. She wore her martini-shaped earrings and nursed a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. She recalled serving 35-cent grilled-cheese sandwiches and taking the orders of mobsters such as Mickey Cohen and Frankie Carbo. Carbo liked take-out steak four times a week and fish on Fridays, she said.

“He’d cut your throat, but he wouldn’t eat meat on Fridays,” Broude recalled.

The Redwood moved to its present location about 35 years ago from 1st and Broadway, where it occupied a building just a stagger away from the Los Angeles Times. It was so popular with reporters that a Times phone extension was set up in the bar, making it easier for editors to reach reporters after hours. (The red phone remained a working fixture at the Redwood until Friday morning.)

The Redwood had its origins in the 1930s, when Eddie Spivak began making 10-cent burgers in a small shop on 1st Street. In the 1940s, Spivak renamed it the Redwood House. It was also known affectionately as the Red Dog.

Not long ago, it became the Redwood 2nd Street Saloon. On Friday, tomes reminiscent of the denizens of its heyday remained on the shelves -- “California Criminal Defense Practice,” “Annotated California Codes,” a dictionary and a “Guinness Book of World Records.”

With most of the customers gone by 11 p.m. and the front door closed, relief overcame Ho Park. “At last I’ve come out from a long, miserable tunnel.”

About 12:40 a.m. Saturday, the last strains of Ella Fitzgerald lilted from the jukebox: “No, no, they can’t take that away from me.”

The last half a dozen young customers gave Ho Park an awkward hug, staggered out, and the Redwood’s day was done.